Inland Empire

εξώτερο διάστημα

with this film, lynch proved that even directors can be deluded but that ancient myth of rhesus: that everything they touch would turn into gold. unfortunately, the closest he can get to gold is via that freud equivalence that equates shit with money or gold.

HKFanatic

"I'll show you light now. It burns bright forever. No more blue tomorrows. You on high now, love." Lynch does Lynch. A decade later, "Inland Empire" remains the filmmaker's most impenetrable work in a career that hasn't exactly courted the mainstream - an ugly (both visually and tonally) journey down the rabbit hole of identity and fame, as a creeping Old World evil infects the streets of Hollywood Boulevard.

Richmond Hill

Don't go in expecting a rug and it won't be pulled from underneath you. What appears to be hard work is just a way of dreaming: non-linear & without neat resolution. Here Lynch has created a ruminative, spatialise fresco of time, portent, subsumption, multiple personalities, abstractions, etc. It suffers from the largess a cheaper medium affords but is nonetheless a fascinating dream epic with room to breathe.

Francisco R.

On a first viewing, I found Lynch's vision a bit too unhinged for my taste, since less resources equals more artistic freedom apparently, but still, this is one of the best Hollywood critiques I've seen, a theme that also fueled much of Mulholland Drive's caustic power. Both works pair up nicely in a Jekyll and Hyde-ish sort of way.

Duncan Gray

DV looks like neither film nor life, yet reminiscent of both, so it's perfect for Lynch's uncanny ode to cinema. Despite being totally fucking terrifying, this may be his most optimistic film, telling (by my count) dual stories about an actress who faces her demons by playing a role, and a viewer who faces her own by watching it. Both break through. Another viewing would make it clearer, but I don't have the nerves.

anarresti

So hard to talk about the films that do impact me the most. Like trying to crawl back into my brain, after - yeah... it would be just great to finish sentences like this without feeling a fraud. In most cases I do. But Lynch, in his better shape, creates an irony barrier. Or a bulshit detecter. As if preventing vague metaphors, of tentative interpretations. There would have to be a subconscious language. Or none.

João Eça

the abstraction comes from the erradication of language but language is feeling. abstraction without feeling is like watching nothing for 3 hours. cinema will always need language because language is meaning and meaning is feeling

Scottie Ferguson

Easily Lynch's most confounding film, I'm not even gonna attempt to figure this one out. If he never makes another movie, than this really was one hell of a finale. Inland Empire often feels like the apotheosis of everything Lynch ever made, a film he's been working towards his entire career. That doesn't necessarily make it my favorite of his films, but it's still a totally spellbinding and unique masterpiece.