solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

I’ve been a little disappointed by the releases at the box office of late. Aside from maybe two or three films, there’s been very little that I’ve wanted to see, so the new David Lynch film ‘Inland Empire’ easily made it onto my radar. In general I like Lynch’s films, even though I don’t know what’s going in them half the time. I think Homer hit the nail on the head when watching ‘Twin Peaks’ during one episode of ‘The Simpsons’ by saying, “…brilliant…I don’t get it”. With Homer’s words ringing in our ears, lets press on.

Billed as a companion to ‘Mulholland Drive’, ‘Inland Empire’ tells the story of Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), a fading starlet who’s chance at a comeback arrives in the shape of the lead role in ‘On High Blue Tomorrows’, a re-make of a ‘cursed’ Polish movie called 47. In terms of a rational explanation of the film’s narrative, that’s about as far as it goes. In typical Lynch style, the film quickly dissolves into the surreal, disturbing and utterly confusing, as Nikki finds herself trapped in one or more alternate realities surrounding the film.

Flitting between real life, the filming of ‘On High Blue Tomorrows’, Poland, and other scenarios cooked up by Lynch’s fevered mind, one of the only recurring motifs during ‘Inland Empire’ is a beautiful girl crying whilst watching a film on the TV in her room. In one of the final scenes, Nikki walks into this room and embraces the crying girl before disappearing. For me, this was the key moments as it hinted at what I took to be the film’s underlying message, namely the film industry taking risks in order to connect with audiences.

There are several moments in ‘Inland Empire’ that seem to imply the fading significance of Hollywood, most obviously the death scene played out by Nikki on Hollywood Boulevard’s ‘Walk of Fame’. I got the feeling that Lynch is commenting that through churning out formulaic films, Hollywood is bringing about it’s own downfall, and that the only glimmers of hope are directors brave enough to take risks and make films like ‘On High Blue Tomorrows’ (the fact that this is as a cursed project makes this risk all the more implicit). For as we see through the tearful girl in her room, it is films like these that truly make an emotional impact, and connect with their audience.

If this is the case, this may be a metaphor for how Lynch sees his own role within the film industry. For my money, the prospect of another Mr Bean movie, and dross like ‘Music and Lyrics’, is clear evidence that Hollywood is sick and needs a shot in the arm, and thankfully Dr Lynch is in residence to administer it. Lynch’s adoption of digital over film seems to support this. Filmed entirely on DV, ‘Inland Empire’ has an otherworldly quality, at times pixelated, gritty and overblown with colour, it feels part video art installation, part American TV broadcast. Lynch recently talked about his reasons for using DV at a press conference, citing how the format freed up his creative process, and went so far as to say that for his purposes film is dead, and that digital is his future.

It’s hard to know how to sum up ‘Inland Empire’. It’s definitely not my favourite David Lynch film, and at three hours is quite a commitment when you’re never really sure what’s going on. But it’s definitely not boring, and is a thousand times more original than most of the pap that makes it onto our screens. Lynch is still the outland emperor when it comes to twisting up people’s heads, and love them or hate them, that’s the great thing about his films. They make you think.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 7:43 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.