sean-57842 After devouring the incredible journey that was Twin Peaks: The Return, I went on the hunt for more things Lynch. Inland Empire is probably his most obtuse and difficult film, yet I must admit that I enjoyed it. I won't pretend to you that I had any single clue about what was going on for the majority of the feature, and whilst at times it did come across like a student film (you can thank the use of the Sony PD-150 for that) I was left feeling very unsettled at the conclusion.Simply put, nobody does dream sequences or dream worlds like David Lynch, and considering this entire film blurs the lines between dream and reality from beginning to end, this is the ultimate expression of that art-form. The budget is minuscule, but you will be left questioning what is real, and what it is that really matters, if anything. Laura Dern is excellent, as usual, and there is a pure- Lynchian (sorry to use that term!) scene where she gets stabbed with a screwdriver, and the people around her continue the most morbid conversation, in the most nonchalant way. It is hard to describe, you just have to watch it to see how twisted it is.

alan_ryder I thought 'Inland Empire' has a basic story, about a curse. 'Axxon n' was a Polish story of a prostitute that evolved into murder, allegedly cursed and sympathetically passed on. At the start there is a scene from the play, with the actors faces obscured enigmatically. A film was attempted of it, '4/7' , clips of which are shown periodically, and the curse was passed along. Finally 'On High in Blue Tomorrows' was made based on the other stories and the star, Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), comes to realize how the curse is working and actually ends it. I am guessing that David Lynch added some dream imagery, mostly Nikki's. It seemed to me that one of the victims of the 4/7 movie, a young girl, apparently a prostitute, is trapped in some sort of limbo, in a room and has a metaphorical view of how the curse is working. She also had contact with some sort of hypnotist wizard who seems to be the protagonist in all the stories. Nikki Grace seems to come into psychic contact with this ghost girl, who tells her if she folds a slip over, burns a hole in it and looks through the hole she will see visions that explain some of the mysteries. Nikki does this. While filming 'On High in Blue Tomorrows' her costar Devon (Justin Theroux) also gets the feeling about the curse as Nikki tries to explain it to him. She is having constant visions of the original story 'Axxon n', and tries to explain it to Devon who really wants to understand but doesn't quite, although their lives seem to be somewhat of a parallel to their movie script. I thought Nikki was also having dreams about her situation, symbolized by some rabbit people in a Room 47 who say symbolic things about the stories. Devon and Nikki are also having an affair and their spouses suspect and both plan on doing something about it.Clever, eerie story I thought.

J Smith (Spike_the_Cactus) This feels like the natural culmination point of Lynch's films. Mulholland Drive was a masterpiece, whereas this feels like the indulgence that the latter film afforded him. That's not meant derogatorily. Mulholland Drive was a perfect Lynch film, but Inland Empire felt like he'd finally got the green light to follow all of his artistic tendencies as far as he wanted (even jokingly acknowledged in the final scene). It's a descent into madness, and the rule book went out of the window. This has some of Lynch's most memorable scenes, but it also pushes the viewer's natural inclination to apply order beyond the limit.It's not free form stream of consciousness, but is right on the line. There are hints all over the place, but unlike Mulholland Drive there isn't a suggested interpretation that emerges. I have my own ideas about what this film is meant to be, but that's my personal reading. I believe that Lynch aimed to make a film that invited multiple interpretations, and which resisted definitive resolution. It's this open-ended approach that makes it such an enigmatic and imaginative film. It provokes your imagination.

Matt Sewell David Lynch has long been attacked for his treatment of women in his films. INLAND EMPIRE, the last feature film he made (and, it's beginning to look as though it will be the last feature film he ever makes) responds to these criticisms with a brilliant, 3-hour epic on the treatment of women around the world.At one point, a homeless woman on Hollywood Boulevard tells one of several Laura Dern characters, "Woman, you're dying." In a hodge-podge of what look like unfinished David Lynch projects, INLAND EMPIRE explains exactly how and why women around the world suffer. The most prominent storyline in the film, if such a masterpiece of abstraction can even be limited to the term film, is that of a movie production in which a cast and crew attempt to film a movie that was filmed decades earlier with disastrous consequences. The trials and tribulations the Laura Dern characters go through represent all the hassles we horrid, patriarchal s.o.b.'s put them through (yes, I'm a feminist who was accidentally born with testicles...)The film ends brilliantly with Dern assaulting her masked, unknown assailant, and then a joyous musical number featuring women of all shapes and sizes, clapping their hands and singing along to a Nina Simone tune (not much more radical than that, eh?)The only part of the movie I struggled with were the scenes that took place in Poland (?). One has to expect a certain amount of confusion when watching a Lynch film, though.