Every David Lynch Film Ranked From Worst To Best
4. INLAND EMPIRE
In INLAND EMPIRE (2006), Lynch traversed familiar thematic territory with the dissociated identity of protagonists Nikki/Sue (a transcendent Laura Dern) and their nightmarish descent into a subconscious either fractured or cursed - but found new ways to unsettle.
The disturbing close-ups on Visitor #1 (Grace Zabriskie) and Poitrek (Peter J. Lucas), wearing ostensibly polite if stilted expressions, illuminate to claustrophobic effect the idea that the surface only serves to hide something horrific within. This is a key Lynch concept he, fittingly, never hid better in plain sight - a true moment of filmic brilliance that repels any argument that Lynch's use of a Standard Definition hand-held camera undermined his achievement. The almost nasty look is perfect for a film that is in places so disturbing and invasive it feels to the viewer, much like the cursed film-within-a-film, On High In Blue Tomorrows, that it should not be watched.
Even more so than his best film, INLAND EMPIRE operates under dream logic. As the film plays out, the tendrils of its disparate narrative - anthropomorphic rabbits, benevolent homeless people talking in code both sweet and crude, an absurd Locomotion dance number - burrow into the subconscious to create an ineffable whole understood only in the throes of the nightmare. As the credits roll, so too do the eyes into a woken state. Like a nightmare, the details of which dissipate instantly, any sense of coherence is erased.
The genius of INLAND EMPIRE lies in its power to evoke the fugue state of its protagonist(s) within the audience.