[NewMusic] (work in progress) Review: Inland Empire

[Phillip Greenlief]

Dear bListers,

This is a new entry from my film blog. Since I know some of you on the
list are fans (and in the case of Slusser, former collaborators) of
David Lynch, I wanted to offer it here for your perusal and convenience.
This piece is a work in progress essay on Inland Empire. 

I saw a few people from the local music scene at the theater last night
and some of them were (rightfully) perplexed by Lynch's newest effort. I
really believe it is his most demanding (and perhaps his finest) effort.
I think some understanding of what to expect will help you appreciate
the film - that's why I've posted it here. I realize I'm not talking
about music, so forgive me. 

The music in the film works really well BTW. Badalamente (and Lynch, and
other soundtrack sources) pays homage to Stanley Kubrick (2001, The
Shining) and other directors and film in his use of music in key moments
of the film.

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(from Greenlief On Film: http://greenliefonfilm.blogspot.com/)

Examining the Umpire - Deconstructing Waves of Illusion and Reality in
David Lynch's Inland Empire

I plan on developing this piece of writing over the next few weeks, as
another viewing (or two successive viewings) will strengthen my
impressions of what's at work in this new film.

But since so many people (and critics) that have seen the film have
reported that they didn't understand it at all, and felt there was no
narrative they could grasp, I thought I would offer some of my insights
and instincts. I discussed the plot lines last night after seeing it
with some friends after the film, and they seemed grateful to have some
of the themes clarified. That is my goal in writing this piece.

I believe David Lynch to be one of the very finest (read: challenging)
directors working in American cinema today and he deserves an audience
for this film. It seems he has been unable to find a distributor for the
film, which is more a symptom of America's lack of intellectual
curiosity, rather than the film's merits (IMO). By putting some effort
into appreciating this challenging work of cinema, it may deepen your
appreciation. It is rare that a film-maker would show so much faith in
his audience. He expects a lot from us, but he gives a lot in return.

****************************************
Some intital comments

No film-maker has represented the labyrinth of consciousness in
cinematic terms more successfully than David Lynch. In his newest
effort, Inland Empire (IE), my fellow Angelino has taken the evolution
of film narrative a step further than in his previous work. In IE, Lynch
calls on and surpasses the surrealists' attempts to register the many
fleeting fragments that influence and construct our consciousness.

Inspired by the critical and financial success of Mulholland Drive (MD),
Lynch seems to have been gained the confidence to pursue the furthering
development of a narrative structure that he has been working on for
over 20 years. The films from his oeuvre most concerned with this
development starts with Blue Velvet (BV), and include Lost Highway (LH)
and MD, all of which lead logically to Inland Empire.

For the moment, I'm going to refrain from commenting on the early works
at length and get to the point at hand - trying to make sense of IE
(I'll save that for the final draft). Since MD is most closely related
to the new film, I may reference it from time to time.

In MD, Lynch presented a very clear delineation of the dream world (the
first two hours) and "reality" (the last 20 minutes). Everything leading
up to the final set of sequences, where Naomi Watts awakens from her
Hollywood dream/fantasy, was the stuff of dreams - a dream filled with
the guilt of having hired an assassin to kill her lover out of jealousy
and rage.

In IE, you don't have the clear delineation of waking and dreaming
consciousness - the structure isn't "here's a dream, now she's awake".
Instead audiences find themselves constantly working through the
labyrinth of a woman's consciousness in pursuit of liberation.

Narrative Summary

As usual, the "set up" (the movie you think is being made) is pure
illusion - all the power and wealth are pure projection and fantasy.
Laura Dern appears to be married to a man that is at the center of an
Eastern European prostitution ring. Her journey throughout the film is
to murder her husband, in order to free a young girl who has been
captured by this king/pimp, brought to America, and enslaved in a house
where she works to bring in the dough. The man you think Laura Dern is
married to (as illustrated on the surface of the primary illusion) is
really the husband of the young girl. They are brought together, along
with her son, at the end of the film. The "rabbit family", shown at the
beginning of the movie, represents the "disguised" family that we do not
see in real-life until after the murderous climax of the film.

The man that is seen in some of the scenes shot in Poland, and also in
America, seems to be her real husband. In the dream-logic of the film,
Laura Dern's character serves as a guardian angel for the young girl.
This young Polish woman, who has psychic abilities, is using those
abilities to project the action on to a screen (a film within a film),
which moves through the labyrinth of her unconscious in order to free
her.

In IE, Lynch is primarily wrestling with a question that vexed the
existentialists: "what drives us into action?" - In IE, this question
steers the film from beginning to end. IE explores the ways that
television, movies, pop-song mythology, memories, dreams, family
members, friends, and the fantasies and illusions we project in and out
of our states of consciousness, all come together to help the individual
negotiate how to act in the present tense. As individual human beings
with experiences unique to our own personal mythology, we are always
assembling a mass of information that comes from these sources (both
personal and societal) in order to "be" who we are (which is not unlike
acting in a movie based on what you know about your character). 

In this case, the "action" is murder as liberation. This is expressed in
the film through the "action" of a film that is being made. The man
Laura Dern murders is her husband, but not the man we assume is her
husband. The man we assume is her husband is really the husband of the
young Polish prostitute who is enslaved by the pimps (the way Naomi
Watts was enslaved by the movie industry in MD). This young girl is
watching a film that is being made in order to determine whether or not
she will be liberated from her prison. Who is really directing this
film? - The young girl? - Is the "film" really the narrative of her
consciousness? - These seem important questions to consider when viewing
the movie.

Unlike some of the critics and friends who have claimed that the new
film is merely a meandering wash of nonsense, there is a strong
narrative at play here - its structure is that of a labyrinth of the
unconscious (IE is Lynch's most Jungian effort). The endless dark
hallways that Laura Dern moves through represent that labyrinth.
Consequently, there is no excess - every image, every sequence is part
of the puzzle and must be taken into consideration. Since the film runs
at nearly three hours, there is a lot of information to digest!

All the information is there to piece together the story, but the viewer
has to pay attention to assemble it. The opening image is one of a
recording - an old school lathe that "cuts" a song into vinyl. The image
could represent that what is to follow is a recording, or document, of
something that happened in reality, in real time.

The first scene with characters, for example, could be seen as
superfluous. But it tells us what the film is really about. In this
first short episode, a man and a woman who are speaking polish (their
faces are obscured from view), are about to enter a hotel room. Once
inside the room, we realize the man has hired the woman for sex. This
reveals to the viewer (much the same as the opening dance sequence in
MD) the "problem" that drives the film. We discover in a later scene in
the film (sequences are cut-up, out of chronological sequence) that this
is the scene where our young Polish heroine is kidnapped.

There are several scenes that take place in a room with characters who
are wearing rabbit costumes. Apart from the enormous humor that plays in
these scenes (and the reference to TV sitcoms), the message of these
episodes is important: a family (the central family of the story) is
disguised: we don't know who they are and we do not learn who they are
until the ending sequence when they are reunited after the mother's
liberation. Their "room" is connected to a large palatial space (left
over from the great days of the Russian "Empire"). This setting is
important: it informs us that the family is "connected" to the "old
world" (Poland, in this case, not Russia).

The pimps that import the "Empire" to America, are also disguised. We
are told (by the man we assume is Laura Dern's husband) in one scene,
that they are circus performers. This lie is kept in place to disguise
the whereabouts of the young woman who has been kidnapped. Later in the
film we see the main pimp solicit the young woman on the street one cold
wintry evening (this scene is a predecessor to the opening hotel
sequence described above).

An aside: You have to appreciate that David Lynch, despite the mass of
illusions he has piled on his subject, is dealing with a very real
problem in his new movie. For over a decade now, many young eastern
European and Russian women have been lured to America with the promise
of (honest) work, only to find that the employment in store for them
once they arrive is "the oldest profession in the world". Given that
many of these ladies come from strong families and have old-world pride
and cultural conditioning, they are often too ashamed to write home and
tell their families what is really going on - so they remain enslaved in
these rings, occasionally sending money home to their families, while
furthering the impossibility of escaping their fate. The notorious
prostitution rings that Lynch is exposing can be found in New York and
Los Angeles (Lynch's home turf and setting for the film), and elsewhere
(I've read about the rings in these areas, but I don't pretend to be an
expert on the subject). This practice has also affected young women from
Southeast Asia.

Now that the principal story line is in place, let us examine the
artifice. The film jumps from the room occupied with the rabbit-people
to southern California. A strange woman with an eastern European accent
calls on Laura Dern, in order to introduce herself ("one should know
one's neighbors"). The dialogue, as goofy and Lynchian as it can get, is
important: she warns the young actress that a murder is part of the
"story", despite Dern's refusal that murder has nothing to do with "the
movie". 

As it often happens in Lynch films (MD, LH), the set-up, or the movie
you think you are watching, is all illusion. Laura Dern is not an
actress. She is not married to a overtly wealthy and powerful man...at
least not the young man we think she's married to. Her real husband may
be the leader of an empire, but it is a dark and dank empire that
occupies the distinctly non-glamorous landscape of Pomona (not Beverly
Hills or Bel Air).

Lynch continues by creating the illusion that Laura Dern has been
offered a very important part in a movie - a role that could "save" her
career (in reality, it will save a young girl's life, her sanity and her
family). Jeremy Irons and Harry Dean Stanton are the fellows making the
film, with a stable of producers that hover in order to protect their
interests (a mirror-image of the strong arms who protect and camouflage
the central pimp). You can tell by the flippant way that Lynch handles
these two characters that they are mere cardboard cut-outs. The
assistant director played by Stanton is constantly borrowing money from
the cast and crew (just as in "reality", Dern's imaginary wealthy
husband is actually a poor and desperate man willing to do anything to
get his wife back). The director of the film, played by Irons is always
about to do something to get things going, but that something never
really happens.

>From the start, suspicion abounds that Laura Dern and Justin Theroux
will transit from actors who are making a film about a couple that is
having an affair, to married adults having an affair. The adultery seems
to have taken place between Dern and Theroux in (the film's) "reality",
which motivates Susan Lynch (Theroux's wife) to stab Dern with a
screwdriver in one of the ending sequences. 

Adultery serves as a sinister plot device, but it also serves as a
central metaphor: the allegiance to family and the destruction of the
family through the act of "errant sex" is especially important in IE.
The cinematic family has its doppleganger in the "family" that runs the
prostitution ring, as well as the Polish family that is being torn apart
by the prostitution ring (is there such a word as "triple-ganger"??? -
my German is clearly over-taxed here...).

In the central part of the film, Laura Dern is led by a chalk-drawn
symbol to a house - this is when the empire proper begins to be
revealed. She meets other women there - women who have been "duped" by a
man who controls them. It is assumed that this man is either Justin
Theroux, or the husband of the actress played by Laura Dern (as in MD,
Lynch uses the Bunuellian device of dividing the central female role
into two separate parts - re: "That Obscure Object of Desire"). There
are some funny and heartbreaking scenes in the house as Laura Dern (and
the audience) begins to see what is really going on in the house...

Once she meets the girls, the film begins to focus more on the central
problem and less on the artifice of movie-making. She arrives
disoriented at the home of affluent Justin Theroux, and confesses her
love before his wife. This is one of the defining moments of the true
relationship between Theroux and Dern.

Eventually, after finding herself stranded on the streets and in fear
that she is being stalked (by Theroux's revenge-seeking wife), she makes
her way into a strip-joint, where she moves upstairs to "tell all" to a
silent confessor. This nameless man, who is possibly managing the
strip-joint, is connected to the prostitution ring; he reports to an
unseen caller that, "yes, she's here now". Dern's confession reveals
some of the plot and allows viewers some much-welcomed narrative
clarity: we learn that she isn't really an actress at all, but really
the victim of an abusive husband who seems to be carrying on with some
shady characters. She doesn't know what exactly, but she knows murder
may be linked to the intrigue. She reveals that he has beat her, and she
is frightened, but is ready (and capable) to castrate him if necessary
to free herself from this dark bondage.

That's it for now. I'm going to see the film again in the next few days
to iron out some of the other plot lines in order to develop this piece
further. If you are interested in seeing the film, just know it is not
one of those movies where you can digest everything in one sitting.
There is so much information operating here, that viewers with a taste
for mainstream cinema will likely be overwhelmed by the onslaught of
cross-stories and plots.


Phillip Greenlief
c/o Evander Music
PO Box 22158 Oakland, CA
94623-9991
www.evandermusic.com