Inland Empire – Studiocanal

Director: David Lynch
Writer: David Lynch
Starring: ‎Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Jeremy Irons, Harry Dean Stanton
Year: 2006
Duration: 180 mins
BBFC Certification: 15

When I first became aware of Inland Empire, way back upon its release in 2006, I was excited not because it was the new film from David Lynch (I was young and naive) but because the film had been shot on Sony PD-150 cameras – the very same cameras that I had access to at University. At a time when the democratisation of film making hadn’t yet been brought about by the iPhone, this was exciting stuff. The PD-150 was generally used by low budget news crews, self shooters and, yes, film students with Hollywood pretensions. For a famous director to be using the same cameras we were using to make our short films and music videos felt incredible – if David Lynch could achieve greatness with a PD-150, then hell, so could we.

This excitement flowed in both directions. While I felt galvanised by the fact that maybe I didn’t have to shoot on film to achieve some kind of legitimacy, David Lynch himself was positively giddy with the new found freedom that Digital Video (or DV, as it is known) afforded. No longer straitjacketed by the time and money constraints that came with shooting on 35mm, Lynch was clearly exhilarated with the creativity that DV offered. The result was Inland Empire. 

To discuss the elephant in the room first; Inland Empire looks rough and cheap. This isn’t a film that was shot on high end digital cameras (like Michael Mann had used on Collateral a few years earlier). The Standard Definition DV look of Inland Empire, with its flat lighting, low dynamic range and digital noise, gives the film a homemade, rough and ready quality that feels quite alienating during the film’s opening scenes. Over the course of the three hour running time you get used to it, of course, but it all feels part of the parcel of what Inland Empire represents, which is arguably David Lynch’s most obtuse, experimental and difficult feature.

Coming, as it does, after Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire can certainly be considered as the concluding part of a loose trilogy of dark, L.A. set noirs focused around the movie business. The story focuses on Nicki Grace (a bold and fabulous Laura Dern), an actress who is about to shoot the biggest role of her career alongside Hollywood leading man Devon Berk (Justin Theroux). When the director (Jeremy Irons) reveals that the film they are shooting is in fact a re-make of a doomed Polish production that was believed to be cursed, Nicki’s world and reality begins to splinter, sending her tumbling into a disorientating, time shifting, Hollywood nightmare.

However complex or surreal David Lynch’s films get, there is usually a strong narrative thread that drives the plot forward – whether that is Naomi Watts trying to help Laura Harring’s confused amnesiac in Mulholland Drive or Bill Pullman investigating who the hell is sending creepy videotapes to his house in Lost Highway. Inland Empire, however, dispenses with a coherent narrative thread pretty early on, resulting in a film that is remarkably obtuse and opaque, even by David’s Lynch’s standards. This reaches its apex in the film’s second hour, where a sense of confusion and lack of pace seriously tests the patience. As the film charts a slow descent into a surrealist nightmare, the viewer seemingly has no more idea as to what’s real than the Nicki does, as different realities and timezones clash and collide through the narrative’s brazen elliptical weaves and jumps.

For Lynch die-hards, there is also the creeping sense of repetition. The ideas and themes of Inland Empire have been seen before throughout Lynch’s career. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you do wonder if Lynch’s creative juices were at full flow during the production; the fact that he hasn’t made a film since (the triumphant Twin Peaks TV return notwithstanding) may be telling.

Yet Lynch is one of those rare artists who is truly incapable, it seems, of ever producing a bad piece of work. Inland Empire, despite some flaws, nevertheless conjures and maintains an insidious atmosphere that continually unnerves with an encroaching sense of creeping dread. The final hour thankfully picks up the pace as Lynch’s nightmarish odyssey reaches a gripping (and at times terrifying) crescendo. He is helped along at all times by a fearless and powerful performance by Laura Dern, who anchors the film even during its most outlandish and outrageous moments. 

Arguably no director in cinema history has come closer to allowing the audience to experience a waking dream (or nightmare) quite like Lynch. In this regard, Inland Empire is easily his most dreamlike and experimental film. Like so much of the director’s work, he pulls back the curtain on an accepted reality to reveal the disorientating darkness lurking underneath.

Whether it all makes sense (or whether it has to make sense) is rather a moot point. This is the kind of film where you need to let go and enjoy the ride. It is the experience, the mood, that the film conjures that ultimately matters. If you open yourself up to Inland Empire’s difficulties and peculiarities, it will reward you with a unique and unforgettable cinematic experience. 

In that regard, Inland Empire fits right in with the rest of David Lynch’s remarkable filmography.  While the decision to shoot in DV may have unleashed his creativity (and inspired some film students to boot) the ensuring freedom to experiment resulted in a film that is easy to admire yet slightly more difficult to love.  Yet, while it may not hit the heights of some of his previous work, Inland Empire remains a riveting and unnerving film from one of American cinema’s true auteurs; and if it ultimately remains the director’s final feature, it can still stand proud as a testament to a unique and singular cinematic talent.

Film:

Inland Empire is being released in a new 2-disc special Blu Ray edition from StudioCanal. The film has previously been released on Blu Ray in a one disc edition – so the main question is whether this new edition is worth picking up? Well, this new release comes from a 4K restoration but as the picture quality is so rough to begin with, it is hard to ascertain exactly what benefits a 4K restoration can provide to standard definition DV footage…and anyone expecting any significant improvements to picture quality will leave disappointed. That being said, this new disc is provides us with the very best picture quality that is possible to extract from DV. Coupled with restored sound (that comes in both 2.0 stereo and 5.1 flavours) this disc represents the best that Inland Empire will ever look and sound – plus, the restoration has been signed off by none other than David Lynch himself.

All the extras for the film are contained on the second Blu Ray disc. By far the best of these is Lynch One, an 85-minute documentary about Lynch and the filming of Inland Empire. Aping Lynch’s visual style and elliptical cuts (somewhat pretentiously I’m afraid) this is nevertheless a really interesting watch. It features lots of interviews and anecdotes from Lynch himself, who is as weird and wonderful as you’d expect him to be, along with lots of on-set footage. For fans of the director, this should prove to be hugely entertaining. 

Next up is a very short, 6 minute interview shot in 2006, where Lynch offers brief thoughts on Inland Empire and his previous work.

Lastly, there is More Things That Happened, which comprises a whopping 75 minutes of deleted scenes from Inland Empire. None of these feel that essential, but they still contain enough of Lynch’s idiosyncratic genius to make them a worthwhile watch.

Disc:

Overall then, this is a very strong presentation of David Lynch’s Inland Empire. If you don’t already own the film, this is certainly the best version to get, coming as it does with a 4K restoration of the DV source, more than an hour of deleted scenes and a great documentary on Lynch himself. For owners of the the previous disc, it is a little less clear cut. There certainly isn’t a marked improvement in picture quality and we lose a few interviews from the previous disc. It is up to you whether the (admittedly significant) amount of extra content on the new disc is worth double dipping for.

Where to watch Inland Empire