Wm. B. Sullivan Realty & Co.
David Lynch at the Music Box with "Inland Empire".
review by Tyler Sutherland
I wake up. What time is it? Where am I? The lighting doesn’t tell me much and neither do the non-descript sounds coming from places I can’t see. Visions in my head of a rabbit sitcom, a long cold journey, a woman in trouble, clowns, prostitutes, endless lines, and I can’t place any of it. Yet, it seems familiar…it’s all happened a thousand times before and it echoes incoherently through my head like it should make sense. But who am I? Who is she? Just what the hell is going on here?!
It was the midnight showing that confused me. David Lynch was in Chicago for one night only; introducing what he says will be his final film, Inland Empire. It was an unusual release, completely independent of the Hollywood studios. Lynch was distributing Inland Empire himself and a group of friends and I were lucky enough to have tickets for one of his two appearances. The midnight showing at the Music Box had been sold out for weeks, so there was certainly going to be a crowd. We left ourselves an hour and a half for the train ride and the ten-block hike through the unbearably cold Chicago wind.
We were in the grips of paralysis and frostbite by the time we made it. Still forty minutes early and the massive line that awaited us was curling around the corner of Southport, onto Waveland. As we tried to keep warm, wishing for a good fire in a barrel, people asked what we were in line for from their toasty cars. “Coldplay!” someone shouted. The doors didn’t open until about ten til midnight, but we knew when they did because the collective sigh of relief could be heard around the corner.
It was my first time in the beautiful Music Box theatre…complete with massive walls straight from an Italian villa, a starlit night sky overhead, marble floors and a giant red curtain covering the screen that Lynch himself may have brought with from Club Silencio. I took my seat as the crowd started applauding the theatre manager standing in front of the curtain. He gave a brief introduction and then everyone roared and went into an instant standing ovation as David Lynch walked across the stage. He thanked everyone for coming, suggested a good breakfast when the three-hour experience was over and paused for some organ music to set the mood. Lynch then read a short but nice introductory piece and that was the last we saw of him. He took a half hour of questions after the 8 O’clock showing, but I can understand him not wanting to stick around until 4 AM.
Inland Empire seems to have a coherent structure and plot for the first hour. Laura Dern plays Nikki Grace, an aging actress excited to have the part of Susan Blue in On High In Blue Tomorrows, a film that could revamp her career. Despite the rumors that the film is cursed, she falls deeply into the role and despite warnings from her powerful, controlling husband, she has an affair with her young hotshot costar, Devon Burke (Justin Theroux). Nikki and Devon’s real life affair parallels that of the characters they’re playing, and as the movie progresses the line separating film from reality disappears…along with any sort of linear progression.
The rest of Inland Empire is the most intense, cryptic, emotionally and mentally draining dream you’ve ever had. You go on a panicked, sometimes sorrowful introspective journey with Nikki or Susan, whoever…and she seems just as lost as you. The film transcends time, giving us fragments of what could be the same story, or pieces of it, in a different place, different languages. You’re forced to feel your way through one dark, overwhelming scene after another, just praying the next one will shed some light on whatever it is you’re watching.
My patience would have run out 2/3 of the way through Inland Empire if it weren’t for the inspired performance of Laura Dern. She brings a lot of humanity to the role, and I really found myself pulling for her despite the abstract world she inhabits. She’s the only constant, so I found myself just holding onto her for dear life. Plus, Nikki’s plight reflects the viewer’s…I don’t know what the hell is going on and if she can sort it out, maybe I can too.
As the credits rolled and the lights came on, there were a few cheers, but mostly just a lot of truly drained people looking around at each other like “Did that just happen?” I couldn’t tell if they were satisfied, and to be honest I was an absolute zombie at that point. I just wanted to get to the train station as quickly as possible. Was it a good movie? Inland Empire is hard to summarize in those terms. It’s not a movie; it’s a trip. The kind of epic nightmare you think about for years after, trying to make sense of it all, always coming a little closer, but still impossible to nail down. To me, that’s a very good thing…but not for everyone, not for the faint of heart, only those with true grit. Inland Empire is chop full of that.
Editors Note:
A unique and interesting man, perhaps still waiting for
Godot, but he has also saved a seat for you next to him.
Some David Lynch Links below:
Mel Brooks once remarked that David Lynch was the
"Jimmy Stewart from Mars." The first link gives some
background on Lynch and the second link is to his own
site....have a look around--Mars looks red in the light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lynch
http://www.davidlynch.com/
© Suburban Journals of Chicago
published by Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc.
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