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The Territories Along the Inward Voyage
Aug. 6th, 2023 12:38 pm
Every three days or so, I get a mad desire to watch a David Lynch movie. Which is terrible because Lynch movies benefit from infrequent viewing, when he can surprise you with a well chosen sound effect, musical cue, or image. Fortunately, I've only watched Inland Empire about fifteen times or so and not at all since moving to Japan three years ago. So I watched it last week.
Released in 2006, it's looking increasingly likely to be Lynch's final feature film. Which would be appropriate considering the closing credits feature what seems almost to be footage of his retirement party, complete with dancing girls and a man sawing wood.
Some consider the third season of Twin Peaks, released in 2017, to be basically an 18 hour feature film. I do believe I ranked it among films myself on my yearly ranking and on my ranking of films from the 2010s. American TV has become increasingly serialised over the past decade, but even by those standards, the episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return feel inextricably linked in ways no other show does. Inland Empire is not dissimilar.
It's a three hour film about an actress, Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), who gets trapped in a haunted screenplay. Inland Empire is arguably Lynch's most postmodern work because, at its heart, it's a commentary on the audience/artist relationship. The concept of a haunted screenplay is a good vehicle for this because it provides a pretext for commenting on how stories connect people across time and space. Lynch uses the concept, too, to string together a number of previously standalone vignettes he filmed for his web site that all take on a broader meaning within the narrative.
But unlike most postmodernist dramatic works that are unsatisfying due to the emotional distance the writer clings to in an analytic mode, Lynch's unique mastery of visual and audio storytelling creates a visceral and personal experience. That shot of Laura Dern running on the hillside with that garish grin is always scary. The troupe of prostitute spirits, which becomes a kind of Greek chorus, almost an audience surrogate, is effectively mysterious and unnerving yet oddly comforting. Their mocking dance to "Locomotion" is a celebration, a satire, and a tormented cry all at once. Because human feelings are that complicated and self-contradictory.
I love the scene where Nikki, performing with her co-star played by Justin Theroux, has to break character and laugh, commenting how the lines are just like the screenplay for the movie. It's such a brilliant moment of Alice in Wonderland logic. something that literally makes no sense and yet also makes perfect sense on a deeper level. We know what she means even though what she says is meaningless.
The story is episodic and disjointed and yet undeniably all a smoothly connected whole. I often feel Lynch's movies are best taken in one gulp, an opinion I think he shares, considering he dislikes providing chapter menus on his DVD and blu-ray releases. People underestimate the importance of sequence not just on a narrative level but on a sensual level. A funny scene has a different impact if it comes right after a scary scene, a scene of romantic consummation is different if it comes after scenes of darkness and confusion. You really have to be open to taking the ride.
Inland Empire is available on The Criterion Channel.
