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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE - Now with Spoilers!

  
 
PatrickMM
00:27 / 12.03.07
Well, here it is, at last the spoiler thread. As a basis for discussion, I'd point to my own writeups of the film, one for the first viewing, one for the second viewing. You can also check out an index of other theories.
 
 
sideweyes
13:57 / 12.03.07
PatrickMM- I your interpretations above effectively sum up an extremely complex film which is saturated with significance in relatively few words. However, I think there is a temptation with Lynch’s “mystery” films (in which I include Lost Highway, Mullholland Dr. and Inland Empire) to miss out the minutiae to try and grasp the larger, overall mystery of the film in its entirety.

As you say: I hesitate to approach this film in the same way as Mulholland Dr. or even Lost Highway, where you come up with a basic explanation, then sculpt to fit what happens in the film. Here, there's so many layers of reality in play, I feel it's better to follow emotional logic.

I agree with this, I would prefer to discuss and read the movie in terms of more local logic than attempting to come up with the Big Answers straight from the start; forcing the associations to confer with an already decided interpretive mould.

That said, I think one of the main questions with these films is whether all of the elements are arranged as a sublimely constructed, yet nevertheless decipherable mystery or a series of elements which allude to such a structure but stop short of delivering definitive answers. I tend toward the former. It is the difficult question of author vs. reader; how much should our reading try to uncover the authorial intention in the work and how much should it exalt our own, personal interpretations and notions which are evoked by it?

I thought the film took place on several different degrees of reality- the most exterior of which being the obvious one of us, in the cinema, watching the screen. This was made explicit by several elements- The beginning titles, too large to fit on the screen, expanding, extending beyond its borders and reminding us from the start of its boundaries; Breaking of the fourth wall later in the film, with the mention of the theatre and the repetition of those elements of the confessional scenes (characters looking directly out of the screen); the continuation of the images until the very end of the credits, as if the film was actually continuing beyond our viewing of it. There may be other elements?

The next degree of reality that I identified in my viewing was that of the Polish girl in the hotel, watching the story of the Nikki/Sue character on the screen. I felt, like Patrick, that Sue/Nikki was in fact a projection onto the screen of the Polish girls fantasy, inner life and that this was communicated by the empty dreamlike quality of our first encounter with N/S, dreamily wandering around a gigantic fantasy home, ( a location which seems out of sorts with a character who is not yet a star, and bizarrely returns as the family home of the Billy/Devon character later in the film. Was that the same Butler?) a world which is intruded upon by the gypsy lady who punctured the assured safety of this realm.

That would be my initial tuppence but I don’t want to digress too far to begin and would rather other elements came out in discussion in-thread.
 
 
Stoatie's power level is >9000
17:06 / 13.03.07
a location which seems out of sorts with a character who is not yet a star

That bugged me on the first viewing- second time round it occurred to me that not only is her husband a powerful gangster, but that someone- not sure who, could be Irons- makes some comment about putting her back at the top.
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
16:37 / 20.03.07
I was supposed to like this film. I know I was, because it looks just like the sort of film that I like. It's deeply unsettling. I liked the bits with the creepy rabbits and I liked the bit with Laura Dern's face superimposed over the Polish next-door neighbour / Cramp entity (whatever it is, I'm not sure you can call the people in this film "characters")near Room 47...

BUT...

I *cannot* rid myself of the idea that he started filming a completely different movie that *did* have something like a coherent plot and then just gave up when he got to the extended dream sequence. And then sold the thing on his own name.

BUT...

I found myself deciding that he was drawing parallels between prostitution and movie stardom. I also found myself deciding that all the girls in the Drab House Behind the Curtain that were talking about tits and relationships were prostitutes / actresses that had already been killed by the evil magic polish gypsy story by being sucked into it and acting out it's "roles". And ALSO deciding that all of the actors that had ever been involved in making versions of "Blue Tomorrows" (and I found myself deciding that it had been made in many forms many times before, always killing participants in it's creation) had become ghosts floating around inside the story. Also, I figured that different versions of it had become entangled and it wasn't able to make sense of itself anymore. I also thought Nikki/Sue/Laura ended up killing the carnivorous story in the sequence where she shoots the "Cramp" guy just before entering room 47. And somehow she releases all the story's victims at the end and they all start dancing.

BUT...

I don't even really know if all this is an "interpretation", it was pretty much just reaction. And there's *masses* more stuff in the... "story".... sorry, no, "sequence" (and even that's wrong) that doesn't fit with this kind of interpretation at all! I was rather distantly watching my head's insides trying to match up previously understood story tropes to what I was seeing. Eventually this instinct collapsed and I was just staring dumbly at the thing like a sponge with eyes.

I didn't *enjoy* watching it at all. It was *way* too long for me. I got annoyed with it straight away with the appearance of the red-headed polish woman turning up at Nikki's enormous house. She was so OTT, even for a Lynch, that I became inescapably aware of the director trying immensely hard to manipulate my attention and I disengaged, and that's fine, but not for three and half hours! It's the cinematic equivalent of the Rothko Room in the Tate Modern. It got *awfully* boring. Engaging in intellect-based analysis of a text continually for three and half hours without any emotional feedback removes your ability to interact with it at all, you run out of energy. You can't *sense* it and you can't *process* it either. An excellent way to burn images into the subconscious. I wonder if any of those images will sart turning up in my dreams? Would I want them to? The hand gesturing at the the figure walking through the red curtains was really frightening but so exactly fits the kind of thing I dream about that I wonder if I shall find it following me around when I'm asleep...

BUT...

I might watch it again, if only to see how much more order I can read into its chaos.

I haven't the faintest idea whether I *like* it or not.

BUT...

It is, undeniably, a significant film. A very strange, heavy, ponderous, murderous, dangerously significant film, one of thise films that makes you look at other films differently.
 
 
rizla mission
17:47 / 20.03.07
I *cannot* rid myself of the idea that he started filming a completely different movie that *did* have something like a coherent plot and then just gave up when he got to the extended dream sequence. And then sold the thing on his own name.

I think it would be entirely wrong to suggest Lynch started out with the intention of making a conventional narrative film and gave up halfway through. A commonality between all of his films from 'Blue Velvet' onward has been the use of a 'normal' starting point to essay characters' (or the whole world's??) descent beyond the realms of sanity, emotional normality or cause & effect reality.

'Inland Empire' does exactly the same thing, only with a more sudden and uncompromising slide into Lynch-space, and with a more sustained duration (unlike the previous films, IE never "comes up for air" by returning to the conventional world).

I found myself deciding that he was drawing parallels between prostitution and movie stardom. I also found myself deciding that all the girls in the Drab House Behind the Curtain that were talking about tits and relationships were prostitutes / actresses that had already been killed by the evil magic polish gypsy story by being sucked into it and acting out it's "roles". And ALSO deciding that all of the actors that had ever been involved in making versions of "Blue Tomorrows" (and I found myself deciding that it had been made in many forms many times before, always killing participants in it's creation) had become ghosts floating around inside the story. Also, I figured that different versions of it had become entangled and it wasn't able to make sense of itself anymore. I also thought Nikki/Sue/Laura ended up killing the carnivorous story in the sequence where she shoots the "Cramp" guy just before entering room 47. And somehow she releases all the story's victims at the end and they all start dancing.

That's a REALLY GOOD THEORY! Like it!

Although having said that, I did find myself arguing quite strongly with someone that those L.A. girls were NOT supposed to represent prostitutes... and then realised I had absolutely no idea why it mattered either way, except that I liked them as characters and found them a very comforting and human presence in the film amidst all the black, howling terror.

I don't even really know if all this is an "interpretation", it was pretty much just reaction. And there's *masses* more stuff in the... "story".... sorry, no, "sequence" (and even that's wrong) that doesn't fit with this kind of interpretation at all!

I'm fascinated by the way that I've heard an entirely different interpretation of 'Inland Empire' from every person I know who has seen it.

I've long been convinced that Twin Peaks-era Lynch DOES usually have a single, objective 'meaning' behind it, even if it's one which will never be fully revealed by the big man. But 'Inland Empire' strikes me as being more of a cipher for the individual viewer's own ideas/preoccupations, and a BRILLIANTLY constructed one at that; I honestly think it is capable of having a different story and a different emotional context for every viewing experience, with each seeming as valid and plausible as the next, which is, well... staggering fucking artistic genius, to state the obvious.

I didn't *enjoy* watching it at all. It was *way* too long for me. I got annoyed with it straight away with the appearance of the red-headed polish woman turning up at Nikki's enormous house. She was so OTT, even for a Lynch, that I became inescapably aware of the director trying immensely hard to manipulate my attention and I disengaged,

I liked the scary Polish woman a lot actually, thought it was an excellent scene - all the more powerful for it's in-yer-face OBVIOUSNESS (try not to cringe and/or gasp when she starting talking about "..BRUTAL fucking murder..").

But then I always really like the gothic horror movie-esque "warnings" people receive in Lynch films... in a regular horror context they'd come across as rather ham-fisted once the predictable/silly threat was revealed, but somehow, given the more subtle and insidious evil of Lynch-world they end up seeming... strangely spot on. You know, as in: that weird lady's not kidding: If you value your soul, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS FILM.

It got *awfully* boring. Engaging in intellect-based analysis of a text continually for three and half hours without any emotional feedback removes your ability to interact with it at all, you run out of energy.

This is something else I'd very much disagree with. As I stated in the other 'Inland Empire' thread, I think it is remarkable, given the abstraction and confusion of characters and events-sequence, that Inland Empire managed to provoke more strong, all-consuming emotion in me than just about any other film I've ever seen. Even when you've lost track of who's who and what's going on, the characters (and places/events) stay firmly fixed in yer head as (like you say) "entities", and like it or not, you remain thoroughly CONNECTED to them.

Speaking for myself, I know I laughed like a drain, cried a river, jammed my eyes shut and nearly fell off my seat in stark, screaming terror and gaped in awe at heavenly, unspeakable beauty.... not bad going for a "boring" movie about "nothing".
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
20:49 / 20.03.07
I think it would be entirely wrong to suggest Lynch started out with the intention of making a conventional narrative film and gave up halfway through. A commonality between all of his films from 'Blue Velvet' onward has been the use of a 'normal' starting point to essay characters' (or the whole world's??) descent beyond the realms of sanity, emotional normality or cause & effect reality.


I know, but this one felt *wrong*. Even in the most abstract Lynch films there's an assumed spine of reality towards which the "narrative" tends, often reattaching itself by the end, but in this case it just seemed to waver and lose itself. My instincts couldn't lock onto this one. I think he just took it too far for me. I couldn't react to it...

'Inland Empire' does exactly the same thing, only with a more sudden and uncompromising slide into Lynch-space, and with a more sustained duration (unlike the previous films, IE never "comes up for air" by returning to the conventional world).

Yes, and the sequences in which Laura/Nikki/Sue goes on her Out Of Reality Experience into Lynchland worked... for a while. And then I just had to let go, she lost me. My threshold for being dicked around with IRL is low, and used to be far higher for films than it is these days, I'm much more critical and less accepting of being able to see the seams. While watching movies these days I have I have a sort of continuous internal wordless dialogue of sneering eyerolls and irritable sighs. My cinema appreciation apparatus has become the magician's nightmare, the kid in the audience pointing out how he's doing the trick. Ever since Phantom Menace...

My bad. Maybe it's just that I'm losing attention-span through approaching the beginnings of middle age. It certainly sounds like you got a lot more out of it than I did, so there must be stuff there, but it's gone... well, not "over my head", but...*under* my heart... if that makes sense...

It's all totally relative and subjective, obviously. And I probably will see it again. I might even change my mind.

That's a REALLY GOOD THEORY! Like it!

Although having said that, I did find myself arguing quite strongly with someone that those L.A. girls were NOT supposed to represent prostitutes... and then realised I had absolutely no idea why it mattered either way, except that I liked them as characters and found them a very comforting and human presence in the film amidst all the black, howling terror.

I'm slightly confused, was it you or your friend who was arguing that they weren't prostitutes? *I* thought it was madly obvious that they were.

And... I'm beginning to think it *does* matter what they are, as I think one of the films strongest themes is the destructive use of women.

Yes, I like them as characters, too.

I think one of the strongest moments (and also the most *irritating*, because it's one of the most disconnected-feeling incidents) is when Nikki/Laura/Sue is with the prostitutes in Hollywood and suddenly gets sick of... something... the role, I think, and I don't really mean the role of Nikki playing Sue, I mean more the role of Nikke/Laura/Sue playing Nikki/Laura/Sue... and starts parodying herself, saying: "Where am I, I'm *scaaaarred*" and all the rest of the gilrs join in laughing uproariously at the revelation.

And that's one of the things that's getting to me about this film. That moment, to me, looks like the Crisis Point, the point where the main character makes the Big Plot Decision. Plots have to have this for there to be stories, basically in all stories (all stories that work properly as stories, that is) the hero or heroine comes to a crossroads and chooses a direction. The rest of the story is about getting to that place and then finding out what happens after you've got to it. I think.

And this movie isn't supposed to have a plot! It's OBVIOUSLY not supposed to have a plot. Um, I thought...while I was watching it... UNTIL I saw that scene and felt the story-understanding machinery inside me wake up and go: "Oh! she's done it! This IS a story!" But there was no reasonable way she could have got to that crossroads! It was a thing that made "sense" in the middle of a movie that wasn't supposed to!

Perhaps we can take it that the humanising influence of the prostitutes within that part of the story *enabled* that development... the positive attitude and the story-sense. By magic. In fact... I think we have to.

And she DID go and complete the quest and kill the baddie after making that decision, essentially, that the monstrous role of victim she was being expected to play was ludicrous.

More things are coming out as I type. I'm NOW finding myself deciding that the Polish Girl Watching the TV is the FIRST actress / prostitute to be taken in and consumed by the story. (Is she the same person who meets "Polish" Cramp in the brown, snow-filled streets where he remarks casually about how strange it is to find her wandering about the streets instead of in their home? I think she is, isn't she? (And... could she be the same actress in the *very first* scene with her head blurred out...? In black and white, old film stylee... OH! As I recall, that scene cuts *directly* to the first scene of Polish Girl Watching the TV!))

And so Nikki/Laura/Sue releases *her* from the fictional mess and everyone else gets to wake up too, like in Bagpuss.

I'm beginning to realise that I'm probably going to *have* to see this movie again.

I'm fascinated by the way that I've heard an entirely different interpretation of 'Inland Empire' from every person I know who has seen it.

I've long been convinced that Twin Peaks-era Lynch DOES usually have a single, objective 'meaning' behind it, even if it's one which will never be fully revealed by the big man. But 'Inland Empire' strikes me as being more of a cipher for the individual viewer's own ideas/preoccupations, and a BRILLIANTLY constructed one at that; I honestly think it is capable of having a different story and a different emotional context for every viewing experience, with each seeming as valid and plausible as the next, which is, well... staggering fucking artistic genius, to state the obvious.

Well.... umph.

IS it? Why, if so? Why is it genius to make a story that no 2 people can agree on what it's about? I've no IDEA what happened in "Inland Empire".

Genuine Question. It's probably not easily answerable.

I must bear in mind that I've been praising "Science of Sleep" in the thread of the same name, partially on the grounds of its ambiguity... I'm trying to figure out why it's worked for me in other films in the past and is more difficult to get hold of in IE. Maybe it's just that there are so *many* possible interpretations.

I liked the scary Polish woman a lot actually, thought it was an excellent scene - all the more powerful for it's in-yer-face OBVIOUSNESS (try not to cringe and/or gasp when she starting talking about "..BRUTAL fucking murder..").

But then I always really like the gothic horror movie-esque "warnings" people receive in Lynch films... in a regular horror context they'd come across as rather ham-fisted once the predictable/silly threat was revealed, but somehow, given the more subtle and insidious evil of Lynch-world they end up seeming... strangely spot on. You know, as in: that weird lady's not kidding: If you value your soul, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS FILM.

Yer know... I'm beginning to think that I just wasn't in the mood for a Lynch...

hmmm
 
 
Stoatie's power level is >9000
02:09 / 21.03.07
I thought that as well as being prostitues, the girls were, when in the room before dancing, all more aspects of her own personality/subconscious- y'know, like pictures of people with an angel and a devil on their shoulders, only with a much broader range than simple duality.

I also like that Niko's monkey turns up at the end. I like to imagine he thought "well, a whole load of people are gonna hate this movie, and they'll resent me for it... I know! I'll given them a monkey!!!"

Of course, if, like me, you loved the movie, the monkey was just an added bonus.
 
 
rizla mission
12:09 / 21.03.07
Yes, the whole credits sequence was superb, like a weird Lynchian reward to the audience.... "ok, you've sat through my long, dark, serious film - and whatdoya know, it had a HAPPY ENDING! So let's party! Bring on the monkey! Bring on the lumberjack!" etc.
 
 
sideweyes
17:53 / 24.03.07
I thought that as well as being prostitues, the girls were, when in the room before dancing, all more aspects of her own personality/subconscious- y'know, like pictures of people with an angel and a devil on their shoulders, only with a much broader range than simple duality.

I thought it was also significant that they all seemed trapped where they were as a result of being exploited by "a man I once knew"- a phrase repeated by N/S later on in the confessional scene.

I think there is also a case for linking the old gypsy women from the beginning to the polish girl from the past since she claims she lives in a house "just down the way", "just down the way" being the location of the murder in the past and the location N/S views through the burn in the chemise. The face of the (then released)Polish girl from the hotel room also fades into the face of the gypsy women at the end and I AM convinced that is the same actress in both time periods...
 
 
Iron Man
22:53 / 21.09.07
Laura Dern deserved an Oscar for her performance in this; she was astronomically good.
 
 
Bots'wana Beast
(prev. Wasn't in your 'crowd', at uni)
01:36 / 22.09.07
She was; how many characters is she transiting between? Five?
Not bad for someone who claims to have no idea what the film's about. Unfortunately Lynch's cow gambit failed to pay off.

I must say, having bought it the other week, I was immensely relieved when it was over; really quite an upsetting watch in every sense of the word. I may have cried tears of relief when 'Sinner Man' came on at the end, it being about the second most exhausting experience - behind watching someone give birth to yr baby - I can recall. Eye of the duck? Surely that bit where the man's bulby balloon head has Dern's terrifying expression transposed on to it.

Also - does anyone else laugh at the Rabbit sitcom, at the appropriate, laughtracked bits? I did, and perhaps I'm just a sheeple for doing so, but I dunno - maybe you're supposed to feel that horrible hollow, abyssal shot in yr gut?

Incredible of course, but by God I don't know if I can put myself through it again.
 
 
The Natural Way
10:58 / 22.09.07
The rabbit bits just chilled me to the bone. He has a way with desolate feeling environments, Lynch does.
 
 
Decadent Daytripper in Love
(prev. Decadent Daytripper Falls Up)
14:31 / 14.04.08
So, after two attempts were stopped less than an hour in, due to phone calls or other business, I finally got to watch this by turning off the phone, shutting down the computer, turning off every light and ignoring the world.

Wow.

The evil and the little boy seemed better echoes/fears than real individuals or anything, whereas there were a number of women I wanted to think of as real. The shooting-the-phantom bit near the end fucked me up good and proper, but I felt remarkably at ease even before we get to the one-legged gal and the dancing. It was like all the sudden, everything's going to be fine. Even the last gasps of terror seem comedic and intangible. That horrific superimposed face moment sort of killed the possibility of further fright or suffering. It's like packing up and standing in front of the door of a hotel room, knowing you can check out right then, but you've got time before you have to be out of the room, so you just chill for a moment. Debtless time.

If anything, the film felt like it was about the falsity of debt. There was fear and angst of owing reinforced at every moment, but eventually it seemed absurd and unnecessary.
 
  
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