Inland Empire (B)

Summary: This is David Lynch's Satyricon. A 3-hour dream sequence shot in low-def digital video with Laura Dern as Lynch's muse du jour of randomness. It's not bad, considering.

Plot: Describing the plot of this movie is rather pointless. Let's just say it has Laura Dern in it. Part of the time she plays an actress, and part of the time she plays a whore, and then part of the time she's in Poland. (Actually, I don't remember now if it's Laura Dern who's in Poland, or some other woman who cries a lot.) There are also some people walking around in rabbit suits. And many ominous interiors. Lynch has said the movie is about "a woman in trouble". But so are most of his movies.

Analysis: This is similar in certain ways to Lynch's previous feature, Mulholland Drive. However, while MD was 1.5 hours of coherent narrative, followed by a 45-minute dream sequence, this one is 45 minutes of coherent narrative, followed by a 2.25-hour dream sequence. For the true Lynch-head, these statistics will not matter, but others may wish to leave at the halfway mark (except then they'll miss the superb credit sequence).

Speaking less quantitatively, Inland Empire is insane. But in a good way, sort of. There are a few too many scenes of Laura Dern creeping down a dimly-lit corridor. But mostly it is not boring, which is an accomplishment of sorts for a 3-hour movie. In fact, it is regularly interesting, sometimes frightening--my blood curdled at the distorted face of the man Laura Dern shoots toward the end--and often hilarious--Harry Dean Stanton has a bit of comedy that is simply priceless. The low-def video turns out to be a goldmine for Lynch, who does more interesting things visually than any film in recent memory. He seems to have been heavily inspired by Kubrick here, more so than in his other films. There are many scenes that are reminiscent of The Shining and 2001, both in the use of wide-angle lens and dissonant classical music (mostly Penderecki, it seemed, from the credits), not to mention the eerie baroque furniture.

To honor Lynch, some more disjointed thoughts: I suspect the movie could be an hour (or at least 45 minutes) shorter without sacrificing too many of the "good parts", and this would help to make it infinitely more accessible. What is impressive, though, is how much mileage he manages to get out of a milieu that's very similar thematically (ignoring the Polish part) to that of Mulholland Drive but is utterly different in texture. This movie nearly wiped The Straight Story, aka DisneyLynch, out of my head. And for that I thank it.

That said, what the hell was Lynch thinking when he made it? Unlike his earlier masterworks, like Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks, there is very little for the viewer to hold on to, and it's clear that Lynch knows how to hold out a branch when he feels like it. But here he chooses to go off the deep end. The result kind of reminds me of the bad poetry I tried to write in high school...only Lynch's bad poetry is much, much better.

Related links: Dana Stevens' review in Slate (http://slate.msn.com/id/2155504/) is spot-on.