David Lynch Friday #9 – Inland Empire

Oh man, this film. Fourteen years later and this film still confounds me. Watching it earlier in the week was the first time I made it all the way through. Back in 2006, I couldn’t do it. The film was obtuse and unwieldy and nothing clicked for me. This isn’t exactly uncharted territory for Lynch and his viewers. Inland Empire remained, for nearly a decade and a half, the lone Lynch work that just didn’t mean anything at all to me. Part of the reason for my doing this project was that it would provide me an opportunity to give Inland Empire another go. I initially planned to watch this film in two sittings — make it easier on my brain. Ninety minutes and ninety minutes. Monday night I sat down, hit play and was mesmerized for 180 minutes. I did it! I finished! And I did it in one go! Hurray for me!

This film still confounds me.

But now, it confounds me in a good way.

I’m on the path now.

There’s a destination in mind.

I will watch this again and again and then again and one day I will unlock all of its mysteries.

And this has been my ultimate point with the project: film requires us as much as we it. Fourteen years later, I’ve now exited my twenties and thirties. I am more mature from a life standpoint and most certainly from a film standpoint. This is why Lynch is my favorite filmmaker of all time: his work grows and matures with us because, love it or hate it, his films stay with us, in our subconscious, the entire way.

So, what exactly is Inland Empire?

The only thing I can say with certainty is that it’s Lynch’s most experimental film. It’s also likely to stand as his final feature, which is oddly satisfying as it bears a certain symmetry to his very first feature film, Eraserhead. Both films are experimental and with Inland Empire, it shows that, decades later, Lynch has never lost his spirit or individuality. Where Eraserhead, to be reductive, told the story of a man in trouble, Inland Empire, again being reductive, tells the story of a woman in trouble.

But let’s dive in a bit deeper.

The first thing to strike me as interesting occurs in the opening seconds of the film. Dark. Shadow. A flashlight clicks on. Flooding light. The unseen person holding the flashlight retreats and the title, Inland Empire is revealed. I love how Lynch shoots this sequence in reverse. Instead of highlighting the film as something found, he unearths the film by showing light retreating to the shadows. I’m sure this is going to be key, one day, to my ultimate understanding of this film.

We move on to a dream sequence, cloaked in shadow, featuring two fuzzy faced people. They engage in sexual intercourse. We’re immediately thrown off and cannot understand what they’re saying (subtitles help, lol). Then, SNAP! We’re in the aftermath. The film is colorized and a traumatized woman sits alone in a hotel room, staring at the snowy signal loss on her television. This is reality and the aftermath of a dream. Everything will only grow more abstract from here because where we snow, she sees a sitcom featuring three people in full rabbit suits. They speak using obtuse sentences that don’t connect to each other in any normal way. There’s a laugh track that makes no sense. Are we peeking into this woman’s soul? Has television snatched her soul? Our soul? I believe the rabbits are a commentary on art and the critique of art. They also come across as a way for Lynch to show us how something that doesn’t make sense to us, may make perfect sense to someone else. It is a fascinating opening salvo.

We move on to Laura Dern, who will dominate this film. She is extraordinary here, like she always is with Lynch. She’s an actress recently cast in a film alongside a mega star played by Justin Theroux. Before that can take place, she’s visited by her Polish neighbor, played with gusto by Grace Zabriskie. Zabriskie levels an ominous warning to Laura Dern about her film, stating that where Dern thinks the film innocuous, she should prepare herself for brutal fucking murder. She then tells a fable about a boy who went out to play…he looked into the mirror and evil was born. And right there folks, we have a direct connection into the world of Twin Peaks. The mirror. The evil twin. Lynch is incorporating all of his work into one gigantic universe and I am here for all of it. Yet there’s more to the fable than just a connection to Twin Peaks. The fable is central to helping us understand this narrative.

Continuing on, it doesn’t make much sense to further explore the plot because it’s borderline indecipherable. Lynch is toying with our perceptions of reality and he’s being overtly impressionistic here. He chose to shoot the film on video and it’s definitely odd at first but we get used to the look and feel and ultimately, we come to understand why he made this choice. The real star of Inland Empire, however, is the sound design. It’s, at once, sparse and all encompassing. The sound screeches at us and fills us with dread and anxiety, never relenting. It is out of this world — perhaps the best use of sound in Lynch’s career.

So what we have here is Lynch using his crew and everything else at his disposal to tell a story without a coherent or cohesive narrative. Why? Because he is obsessed with dream states and psychological story telling. The film in the film is a remake of an older Polish film that was never finished because the leads died during the filming — dead by murder. The film was deemed cursed and nobody involved now, knew this when they signed up. Soon, Dern’s character falls further into descent. Her husband is a violent Polish (possible) gangster. Theroux’s character, after having been warned to not have sex with Dern, does just that and disappears. The director (Kingsley) and a grip (Bucky) get into a hilarious spat on set. But what does any of this mean?

I wrote in my notebook: I am TORN on what this is!

And I still am.

Because this seems to be an exploration on how we, as humans, interact with each other. If it’s just that, it’s fascinating but I think there’s more at work here. There is also a central theme of women navigating a dangerous world. It’s like a noir-ish mashup of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. The thing is, the real world is just as wild and dangerous as these aforementioned fantasy worlds — especially for women. Our female counterparts must always be cognizant of their surroundings and who could be inhabiting the shadows. Nothing is easy or safe for them but I still think there’s more at play here.

Here’s one other thing I know for certain: the final hour of this film is equally haunting and mesmerizing — the viewer cannot look away.

But what else is going on?

So I had a thought about the woman watching all of this unfold on her television. Is she watching the original Polish film? Is it all in her head? Is she watching a fictionalized version of her own life and how it could be? Or…is she…us? This is where Lynch’s home video look makes sense to me. The camera is us. We’re judging all of these events and these people experiencing said events. We are the viewer and this is the story as seen through the eyes of the viewer but still, there’s more going on here.

And this is the major reason I find this film so confounding. I simply cannot land on solid ground.

I think back to that fable about the little boy and the mirror. The mirror can be seen as an instrument of vanity and vanity is the evil twin. A world obsessed with itself is an evil world. We must look inward to project outward. This is vitally important in art. There are sometimes two sides of an artist. You have the creative side and the destructive side. The process of filmmaking is no easy undertaking and there are plenty of aborted projects or projects that die for various other reasons. There are allusions to a possible miscarriage by Dern’s character and part of her journey can be seen as her way of coping with the loss and trying to make sense of the world in the aftermath. But then again, it could merely be Dern reflecting on events and non-events from her past that have already happened. This could be purgatory and she is already dead. Hell, this could be Lynch commenting on his own creative process — the trials and tribulations of the eternal life of success and crushing defeat of a project’s death.

Or.

This is all about two sides of the same world. We have the surface and we have what’s just below the surface. Just below the surface is where the engine revs and powers what we see on the surface. Perhaps, it isn’t the twin who is evil but the world that decided to mirror itself and confound us with its lies. And maybe through sacrifice, the good side, the side of courage and perseverance, can give and receive love.

And then again, maybe I’m all wrong. Either way, I have begun to open myself up to Inland Empire and thus it has begun to share some of its secrets.

Next week, Twin Peaks. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #5 – Wild At Heart

Wild At Heart. Phewwwww boy. Where to begin? I don’t know how to write about this film and it’s beginning to terrify me. I looked over my notes and they don’t make any sense — they’re all questions. I specifically remembering deciding not to get stoned beforehand because I knew this film was a bit of a crazy ride. Now, I’m wondering if I did get high before watching and somehow forgot that I did that. Seriously, this is a question I wrote down and I present it to you verbatim: Is this a visual representation of smoking a cigarette? Love=cigarette?

Uh, what?

First, it’s Lynch and then on top of that, it’s Nicolas Cage. Lynch and Cage together is a recipe for volcanic eruption. Then, you add Willem Defoe and it becomes the end of the goddamn world.

What’s it about?

It’s about a karate kicking guy named Sailor, who’s in love with a hyper sexual woman named Lula. Lula’s mother is a maniac in love with a mobster and she hates Sailor with a passion. She will stop at nothing to murder him in order to keep him away from her daughter. Sailor and Lula embark on a cross country trip full of every vice imaginable as they flee Lula’s mother. There is a ton of sex, multiple cigarettes being smoked at once, murder, mayhem, car accidents, a robbery gone wrong, a decapitation and of course, a snakeskin jacket. After all, it’s a symbol of Sailor’s individuality.

Is it good?

Yes, in a crazy way and definitely not a for everyone way. The film starts, right off the bat, at level 100 and only escalates from there. It can be a bit exhausting. There’s a line in the film that goes: the world is wild at heart and weird on top. That’s Lynch’s philosophy on life and here he is all about showing us the unkempt nature of blossoming love. For the record, the actors are all fantastic in their own scenery chewing ways. Cage has always been both the best and worst actor alive and here he lays the blueprint for every supernova Cage we’ll see during the rest of his career.

We can’t escape the crazy in this film — it’s all consuming. Even when the film slows down a bit as Sailor and Lula reach the town of Big Tuna, we’re only exchanging crazy for a different sort of more unsettling crazy. And then the film ramps it all up again. It is sort of mesmerizing in a reckless way.

Lynch sprinkles plenty of his Twin Peaks cohorts around in the film and also tips his hand toward what we would see in a couple years with Fire Walk With Me. Lynch is always mining himself and his viewer for a deeper understanding of what makes us all tick. Wild at Heart is more soap opera than crime flick while also being Lynch’s completely fucked up version of, The Wizard Of Oz. It’s all there and honestly pretty overt, especially for Lynch. It’s like melding Oz with the Hell depicted in The Divine Comedy.

Everything in the film is set at odds with Sailor and Lula — they are all distractions wishing to keep Sailor and Lula from their ultimate goal. It’s an awesome representation of the trials of young love when two lovers must decide if what they have is real and sustaining or flippant and fleeting. They are tested, and the cigarettes do mean something. Lynch loves the flame and loves the phrase: fire walk with me. Even if that phrase is never uttered in this film, it’s there for us to infer. The flame here represents burning desire and everything else is life after desire has burned itself out. Most of the characters are like zombies because they’ve become trapped by their own emotional failings. Sailor and Lula (really Sailor) are headed here as well until two things: Lula’s pregnancy and Sailor triumphing over his own demons. Lula makes a decision to live her life for their son and Sailor makes a decision to initially stay wild and let Lula go. He’s then assaulted by a group of random thugs after calling them an insensitive sexual slur. It’s after his beating that he realizes the error of his ways. And we realize these thugs to be a representation of Sailor’s inner demons. You cannot conquer your demons with violence and ugliness. You have to recognize them and accept them if you ever hope to walk away and move forward. Sailor finally learns this lesson and returns to Lula and his son, a (slightly) changed man and we’ve all learned a little bit about acceptance.

Next week, Lost Highway. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #4 – Blue Velvet

“I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert.”

The above line sums up a central theme of the film with succinct accuracy. I have vague memories of my parents renting this film when I was a child. I was not allowed to watch it at around seven or eight years old. What I do remember is sneaking into the hallway to try and see what it was I wasn’t allowed to see. I remember Kyle Maclachlan because I was obsessed with Dune at the time and I remember Dennis Hopper because he was always screaming and had that oxygen mask. As soon as I was old enough, I rented the film for myself and I rarely go long without a re-watch. I love this film. I consider it one of the very best films of the 1980s and one of my favorite films of David Lynch’s entire career.

What’s the deal?

It’s a mystery and a hyper-sexualized coming of age story all rolled into a two hour feature film. It stars Kyle Maclachlan as Jeffrey, a college student returned home after his father falls ill, who happens across a severed ear in a field and takes it upon himself to investigate. Laura Dern co-stars as Sandy, a high school senior who is the daughter of a local detective on this case. She aids Jeffrey in his own investigation and the two form a budding romantic relationship. Dennis Hopper plays a psychotic criminal who is the perpetrator of the severed ear and Isabella Rossellini stars as a lounge singer in debt to Hopper and thus subjected to his violent whims. Maybe this is Lynch’s version of a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew mystery — more vibrant in its first half while devolving into a shadowy masterwork in its second half. There’s no need to get into plot specifics here. It’s an interesting and well-told mystery but that is all window dressing to what Lynch is truly after.

In fact, Lynch dishes his thesis in the first few moments. We see scenes of idyllic small town life, full of vibrant color and playful music — white picket fence, flowers, birds, bustling life. Then it quickly gets muddy — both in a figurative and literal sense. As Jeffrey’s father is watering the lawn, the hose kinks and as he struggles, tragedy strikes. He falls unconscious on the ground as the hose goes wild. We see the image of a gun. The dog attacks the hose like a maniac. The camera then moves below the surface of the picturesque lawn — down in the muck we see ants eating and attacking. Nature can be visceral and violent and it all hides just beneath the calm surface. It is always there.

I love how Lynch’s worlds seem off and weird but the truth is that if we were to just stop and observe our own world around us, we would see that he’s never far off from reality. Another important aspect to Lynch’s work, especially here, is his impeccable ear. He is obsessed with sound and his films reflect this — they always sound natural. He continues down this path in the early half of the film as we begin to meet the players and the mystery deepens. Maclachlan and Dern have instant and perfect chemistry — they will become Lynch’s two most indelible co-conspirators as their respective careers blossom. Lynch also infuses the first half of the film with an intense color palette — almost begging us to believe that nothing bad can actually happen.

Then we go to the slow club.

The red curtains. A singer’s introduction. The blue light hits and everything changes. Looking back now, yeah, major Twin Peaks inspiration right here. We are woefully unprepared for the second half of this film. Lynch’s camera at first was observational but now we see it differently — it is voyeuristic. The quote at the top comes back to mind because it’s not just Sandy asking Jeffrey a question disguised as an observation, it is actually directed at us. What are we about? Where are we hoping this film will go? Are we comfortable with our desires? When Jeffrey gets caught in the apartment, a stunning reversal happens. His intrusion is immediately reciprocated. The violation is returned and both involved actually get off on it. It is bold and unflinching and the film is better for it.

We think we still have a handle on the film until Dennis Hopper shows up a few seconds later. He is electrifying and terrifying in equal measure — an all-timer on the film villain list. At the same time he is a stand-in for the dog in the film’s opening. He’s crazy and commands our intention but the real shit is happening beneath the surface. He is our usher into depravity. It’s here where we begin to realize a few things. First, Jeffrey is a boy becoming a man and this is his first glimpse into adulthood. He likes Sandy because she represents the purity of childhood that he still partly craves. But he also likes Dorothy because she represents the dangerous lust he’s beginning to crave as an adult. In return, Sandy likes Jeffrey because she has not yet crossed over into adulthood and Jeffrey represents her own usher. Dorothy, for her part, likes Jeffrey because he is the only thing in her life she has a bit of control over. The real premise begins to present itself: this is an anti-hero’s journey. Jeffrey selfishly wants it all but is unprepared at this stage in his life.

Once we make this connection, everything becomes clear. Lynch is telling a story about the passage from childhood to adulthood. The film is littered with scenes depicting the clash between these two stages of life. For example, Jeffrey’s journey begins with the hospital visit to see his father. This is the moment where his innocence is lost. Even before finding the ear, this is it. Children view their parents as seemingly invincible and their entire world changes when they get smacked with reality.

Lynch drags us further down the depravity well as we spend more time in the company of Hopper’s Frank Booth and cohorts. The Candy Colored Clowns scene is oddly chilling only to be outdone by itself a few moments later in a wicked reprise of the same song. Frank is pure depravity — the dark heart of man. Like I said, he is our usher. There is an animalistic nature to mankind and it hides beneath the surface of civilized society but it is always there, waiting.

But this being Lynch, there is still hope. Jeffrey prevails over the evil Frank Booth. There are two sides to man and those sides must be balanced with precision. Jeffrey taps into his vicious side but never succumbs to it. There can be no light without dark and vice versa. The robins return to the trees and bring love back with them. Love is greater than viciousness. Through all the darkness and flame, we come out the other side more understanding of the world. If violence is a part of nature, so is love and love can conquer all.

Next week, Wild At Heart. Until then, love each other.