Anxiety and disorientation, Dunn's nightmare logic from one identity to another, from one reality to another, from one place to another. So far, he seems to have no choice but to wait for the inevitable violent ending.
-Los Angeles Times
Inland Empire is not a movie that people can't put it down, but a work worthy of worship, full of confusion and painstaking efforts.
-The New York Times
Although the film has achieved good sales internationally, it can still be said that it is difficult to find too many seats in the cinema.
-Variety magazine
At the Venice Film Festival held in 2006, talented director david lynch won a lifetime achievement award. From the treachery of Blue Velvet to the extreme violence of Wild My Heart, from the chaos of Devil's Night to the nightmare of Mulholland Road, david lynch has become a representative figure of contemporary American non-mainstream movies, and all his works have a strange, gloomy, confused and black light with great visual impact. His achievements are obvious to all. Five years after the release of Mulholland Road, david lynch's Inland Empire finally appeared mysteriously in the long-term expectation of fans. No one likes the mystery of david lynch more than he does. This unpredictable king knows what he is doing: he will never give an answer, he will never solve any problems, and he has no meaning. The film Inland Empire can confuse the director who wants to know it thoroughly, and at the same time disappoint the admirers who are not convinced or just admire it, just as boring as washing dishes. The film was almost completed by laura dern's extreme performance, and the three-hour display was not very attractive digital images, and the pace was very slow.
Lynch has always refused to explain, and in this film, he did not give any narrative description. After two and a half years of production, this empirical production method makes the film the most puzzling. There is no complete script from beginning to end. All the actors hold new dialogues every day, and I don't know how they will proceed. Even many of the most experienced film critics are puzzled. So at the press conference, questions such as "Is the movie ready for the audience to understand" and "What did the movie say" revolved around Lynch. Lynch obviously didn't want to explain this. "Everyone should be able to fully understand." He emphasized the importance of experience. "They say Hitchcock is a master of suspense. Mystery and the unknown are my favorite things. Watching every movie is like stepping into a new world. You shouldn't be afraid to use your intuition and feelings to find a way out. " Finally, the tireless Lynch simply said: "This is the bad thing about the press conference-everything revolves around the movie, not the dialogue." He refused to say anything more on this topic, insisting that the film itself speaks for itself. These brown rabbits may be reminiscent of the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, leading Alice into Wonderland in the cave. With some strange and terrible things happening, sunken ceilings and unpredictable situations, this place is far from a wonderland that can make people breathe. After the rabbit first appeared in Lynch official website's short film, it may be inferred that he likes people who wear rabbit clothes very much.
This may explain why Nikki changed to Sue and then changed back. Perhaps it comes from Lynch's deep-rooted interest in Superman meditation and his belief in the concept of reincarnation, which has turned into a transformation between different lives. But Lynch also believes that everything is interrelated in the end, and he doesn't know what he should continue to add to it. Maybe there is no real explanation at all.
Lynch: Change and Invariance
David lynch's usual signs-extreme close-ups, high-pitched shots and red curtains-all appeared in the film, but it is worth noting that some of them did not appear: rich colors and gorgeous images. Instead, it is a blurred DV picture. This way may make Lynch feel more free, but it also loses any visual enjoyment. Lynch personally participated in the music creation of the film, and there were recurring ghostly voices and extremely nervous noises, which often appeared repeatedly in dark corridors. Excessive use of these sound effects leads to the opposite effect in strengthening emotions and atmosphere.
In addition to Jeremy Irons, a well-known powerful actor who has appeared in classic movies such as "Serious Love" and "Lolita", harry dean stanton, an 80-year-old veteran who has appeared in more than 160 movies, Justin Teos, a fledgling, and many other superb stars.
In the title of the film, the original name of the film is reserved in all capitals, which completely follows the highest instructions of david lynch. He never revealed the reason in the interview, and no nosy person understood the meaning of this stubbornness and affectation, just like the new film he pushed away from the front line of the film for five years: more obscure and less plot. Of course, the plot has never been the highlight of david lynch. As an image pioneer with a sharp gesture like a genius in American film history, deliberate disorder and disorder became the symbolic external expression of his story. Since Rubber Head, nonlinear narrative techniques have been favored by him and his followers.
Only from this point of view, Inland Empire is not only excessive, but also a master of the forms and ideas of several iconic works of david lynch, especially the last work Mulan Road, which has been highly praised by both mainstream and non-mainstream fans. It is also the splitting nightmare of Hollywood female stars and the loss of self-identity. Inland Empire is just a sequel to the former, or a footnote. Inland Empire is another work of david lynch named after Mulholland Road. "Inland Empire" is a desolate area in California, which is isolated from water and has its own natural features. David lynch's works have never had anything to do with the place names he borrowed. "Inland Empire" means that the inner world can't be connected with the outside world, and it distorts itself.
The film was inspired by a 70-minute monologue he shot for Lola Dean on the set, and the tone and material splicing were also based on this sketch. I also applied the old-fashioned scenes in the play and disguised it as a psychological suspense film. The heroine of the film has been sleepwalking for a long time after she entered the set, but if there is a discernible line between naomi watts's sobriety and dream in Mulholland Road, then the standard of dividing people's mental state in Inland Empire is blurred, and the heroine lingers between the identities of Nikki and Sue. Sometimes she is troubled by the uncertainty of her identity, and sometimes she enjoys herself in the self-derivation of her identity. Her split was manipulated by a curse outside a fictional scene and became a performance throughout. She never became a real person. When she stood up from Sue's pool of blood and announced that the filming was finished, in the eyes of the audience, she-Nicky or Lola Dean herself-had left the story environment and lost her true self again, becoming a role manipulated by the performance task-an illusory image.
This impression was formed by david lynch's frequent flashbacks, advances, dismemberments and random grafting of time and space in three hours, and many inexplicable metaphorical images were inserted, such as male prostitute and soap operas, which made it impossible to regard Inland Empire as a normal suspense film. Mulholland satirizes the essence of Hollywood star-making project, which boils down to "stars dream of making stars", and it rises to the point where it is completely opposite to the narrative task of movies. By breaking the performance mode of traditional genre films, we should not only let the audience feel that the schizophrenia of the people in the drama stems from the illusion and vanity of the film and reputation itself, but also break their illusions about the inland empire and realize that the so-called wonderful stories and beautiful images are just performances planned in secret. After the filming was completed, david lynch, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Film Festival, also shouted "The film is dead" and announced his farewell to the film. The publication of Inland Empire five years after Mulholland Road can also be regarded as his thorough understanding of the essence of Hollywood mainstream film industry and the limits of film image and performance.