If you're a fan of auteur cinema, especially the surreal stuff, then you already know the works of David Lynch pretty well. A strong proponent himself of dream logic in cinema and a believer in transcendental meditation, Lynch is accustomed to diving deep to find the meaning past the veil of reason. And no film better expresses his bold and sure-handed style than Inland Empire; a three-hour-long portal into the dark and unsettling. This one has a way of working on your mind not just as you watch it but days later as your brain inevitably attempts to make a kind of sense of the whole thing. This is not to say that the movie is without a path to follow but it might be one that you don't recognise until you're already on it. And despite the frequent claims from some (rather insecure) quarters that Lynch is simply a hack doing a hack's work, there's a reason that he's considered a cut above other directors attempting to mimic his style. Because Inland Empire is the real deal, an experience designed to step around the tools that we use for narrativising and understanding our own lives and to speak to that part of us that lies under the surface and that we usually only catch a glimpse of when we dream.
Eric Day co-hosts the Murderville Podcast at www.welcometomurderville.com
Give it a listen. Five minutes. Maybe you'll dig it. Maybe you'll hate it. But at least you'll have tried something new.
