First "Inland Empire" reviews, and they ain't good.

[Lazy Boy]

Two early reviews, both calling it weird for weird's sake, which will no doubt justify complaints by those who've disliked Lynch's movies.

Three hours? Damn, that's long. I really can't see the final cut being kept at that length.

http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp...d=27546&r=true

"THE INLAND EMPIRE

Lee Marshall in Venice 06 September 2006 23:00

Dir/scr: David Lynch. US-Fr-Pol. 2006. 189mins.

Around 10 minutes into INLAND EMPIRE, David Lynch’s baffling new cinematic mindgame, a guy with the head of a rabbit drones: “I do not think it will be much longer now”. Wrong, bunny: it will be another two hours and 50 minutes of improvised plotting, rumbling sound effects and blurry digital camerawork before the final credits roll.

Lynch’s latest, which he spent two-and-a-half years filming on and off – and with no script – begins intriguingly enough, apparently promising a dark mystery along the lines of Mulholland Drive or Lost Highway. But in those tastily bizarre earlier films, you always felt that you could puzzle out the whole thing if only you watched them enough times. With INLAND EMPIRE – and yes, that’s how it’s spelt - we soon begin to suspect that there’s nothing to solve. All we’re left with are a few atmospheric scenes, some menacing music and sound effects – and a great performance by Laura Dern, who commands the screen despite the fact that she doesn’t seem to have a clue what’s going on either.

The film already has distributors in place throughout most of Europe (though not the UK) and much of South and Central America, plus Australia, New Zealand, Korea and Japan. In these territories distributors will benefit initially from Lynch’s strong cult appeal, but results will tail off sharply after the first weekend once word gets out that this is not a dark and sexy mystery but a punishing experimental experience that borders on video art.

INLAND EMPIRE will undoubtedly get a US release sooner or later, but it will be unusually limited for a Lynch film. There was a real sense of collective disappointment after the film’s press screening at Venice, where it played out of competition; the stunned silence from those of us who had expected more was far louder than the few isolated handclaps from diehard Lynch fans.

It’s almost impossible to summarise the plot of a film that doesn’t really have one; by the end of the three hours, we have little to add to Lynch’s laconic press-book statement that INLAND EMPIRE is about “a woman in love and in trouble”.

The woman is Nikki (Dern), an actress who appears to live in a palatial mansion with a jealous husband upstairs. A creepy neighbour (Grace Zabriskie, a Twin Peaks regular) predicts that Nikki will get an important part in a film, and seems to suggest that evil will follow.

Dern indeed gets the part, and begins rehearsals with Kinglsey, an English director (Jeremy Irons), and his lugubrious assistant (Harry Dean Stanton). Her co-star is a cocky young actor called Devon (Justin Theroux), whose romantic pursuit of Nikki in the film within the film (where she is called Sue and he Billy, and they both talk with Gone With The Wind Deep-South twangs) soon spills over into real life.

Kingsley tells his actors that the film they are making is actually a sort of remake: the first attempt to shoot the script, years before, ended with the murder of the two leads before the venture wrapped.

This is a promising Lynchian premise – but the set-up described above takes up no more than half an hour. For a while, as Nikki steps from the film-within-film to another layer of reality that seems to lie behind it, we remain hooked, as Dern’s initially magnetic performance, swinging from tender passion to paralysing fear, plays against the often mannered dialogue and seems to suggest that answers will be forthcoming in due course.

But as the Dern character gradually loses her way in reality’s backstage area, we begin to lose patience. Along the way we meet a desperate, homicidal woman (Julia Ormond) with a screwdriver embedded in her stomach who later turns out to be Billy’s wife; we keep cutting back to the family of rabbit-heads (one voiced by Naomi Watts) who spout annoying Pinteresque non-sequiturs; and we are introduced to some girls who later turn out to be hookers, and who dance in formation to The Locomotion. Oh, and we get some scenes shot in snowbound Polish streets that we strain in vain to relate to the rest of the story. The Irons, Stanton and Theroux characters have pretty much left the scene by the end of the second hour; they probably had other films to make.

Perhaps one of the biggest let-downs, though, is the director’s conversion to digital film-making, which he enthused about on the Lido. Though the format has undoubtedly allowed Lynch greater creative freedom, the result for much of the film is a poor TV-quality image that bleeds colour, and lighting that even a Dogme director would blush at. There are exceptions – notably some striking black-and-white moving collages that take us back to Eraserhead and German Expressionist cinema.

Lynch’s sound design comes on like the boiler room of a Transatlantic liner for much of the time, and though it often racks up the tension, it becomes wearing when we stop caring enough to get tense."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117...ryid=1263&cs=1

"Inland Empire

(U.S.-France-Poland)

A StudioCanal (France) presentation of an Inland Empire Prods. (U.S.) production, in association with Camerimage 2 (Poland)/Asymmetrical Prods. (U.S.). (International sales: StudioCanal, Paris.) Produced by Mary Sweeney, David Lynch. Executive producer (Poland), Marek Zydowicz. Co-producers, Laura Dern, Jeremy Alter. Directed, written, edited by David Lynch.

Nikki/Sue - Laura Dern
Kingsley - Jeremy Irons
Freddie - Harry Dean Stanton
Devon/Billy - Justin Theroux

By JAY WEISSBERG

Nobody loves a mystery more than David Lynch, but the king of the unexpected is awfully predictable in what he doesn't do: He doesn't give answers, he doesn't solve anything and he doesn't try to make sense. "Inland Empire" may mesmerize those for whom the helmer can do no wrong, but the unconvinced and the occasional admirer will find it dull as dishwater and equally murky. Almost held together by Laura Dern's intense performance, the three hours pass slowly by on unattractive digital. Despite frisky international sales, even arthouses may find it difficult to keep auds in seats.

Lynch always resists attempts at interpretation; here, he defies any kind of narrative description as well. Two and a half years in the making, this is seat-of-the-pants filmmaking at its most baffling. There was never a complete script, so thesps turned up each day with a new set of lines and no idea where they were going, making Dern's central turn even more remarkable for its coherence.

Dern plays Nikki, an actress offered a role in a film directed by Kingsley (Jeremy Irons). Co-star Devon (Justin Theroux) is warned to keep things professional, since Nikki's husband (Peter J. Lucas) is fiercely possessive.

Nikki's playing Sue, Devon is Billy, and the two characters are about to launch into an affair. Early in the shoot they learn the script, based on a Polish gypsy folktale, is a remake of a movie that never got finished because the original protags were murdered.

Inevitably Nikki and Devon wind up in bed together, but, during their lovemaking, she starts calling him Billy and he starts calling her Sue. They realize they're mixing lines from the movie into their own lives.

From here on Dern's character fragments, passing through realities in a state of barely concealed terror where everyone is menacing and it becomes impossible to tell whether she's Nikki, Nikki playing Sue, or Sue herself.

But that's the easy part. There are the Poles, who are possibly the first version of the movie's story. There's Grace Zabriskie as a menacing neighbor. There's Julia Ormond's character, first seen with a screwdriver in her gut and later cropping up as Billy's wife. And, of course, there are the giant rabbits on a stage -- two on a sofa, a third ironing (voiced by Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Scott Coffey).

It could be that these (brown) rabbits are reminders of the White Rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland," taking Alice down the hole into bizarre lands. With the strange and terrifying occurrences, the low ceilings and the non sequiturs, there's more than a whiff of a threatening Wonderland. But since the rabbits first appeared in shorts on Lynch's Web site, it may be that he simply likes the image of people dressed in rabbit outfits.

A possible explanation for Nikki's switch to Sue and back could come from Lynch's deep-seated interest in transcendental meditation and the concomitant belief in reincarnation, making the shifts a kind of transference between lives. But since Lynch believes all things are ultimately connected, and he himself didn't know what he was going to add, there may be no true explanation.

Who knows, maybe the reason a group of prostitutes start singing "The Locomotion" is because Lynch heard it on the radio the day before. Does it belong? Does it matter, since everything belongs?

The usual Lynch trademarks -- intense close-ups, monumental headshots, red curtains -- are all here, but noticeably missing are the deep, rich colors and sharp images. Instead, they're replaced by murky, shadowy DV, which may give him more freedom but robs the pic of any visual pleasure.

Lynch's own experiments with music lead to repetitious spooky sounds and tension-filled noises, repeated so often in dark corridors that they, too, fail to enhance a mood already gone awry."

[Tayzlor]

Who are these critics?

It's telling of any critic when they think the smartest way to voice their displeasure is buy including a quotation from the movie, and, twisting it to express how they wanted the movie to be over! Just a general nyuk-nyuk.

It's so tempting (and I fall for it everytime I read the press for movies I want to see from festivals) to read into whatever their saying but unless you are familiar with the reviewer and their tastes there is no reason to be affected by what Jay Weisseberg has to say.

What's worrying is most of America probably won't get to see this in theatres.

Also, why do critics use the pronoun "we" to describe what the audience is feeling when it is only what they are. Some sort of stab at objectivity I guess. As if the problem is coded into the movie and is apparent to everyone there.

[therealjohng]

3 hours of Lynch fucking with my mind? I'm there.

[Sigur509]

^ I was thinking the same thing. Still can't wait to see it.

[Cronos]

not at all surprised by this news and it sounds like its going to be another crappy incoherent mess

[thedudeman69]

The film sounds like it's done in the complex and confusing vein that Lynch normally does his movies in. I am midly angered by this review because it seems like the critic was calling Lynch's filmmaking "lazy" or too confusing for its own good, in my opinon. Also, The critic seemed that he had nothing better to do than critize the digitial quality of the film, which I am going to suprised to see in a Lynch film, but I have high expectations for this.

[chinton]

Oh give me a break. He critisized the digital format because it made for poor picture quality and when you have a director that relies on beautiful if incoherent pictures thats a BIG problem.

This sounds like Lynch's most self-absorbed film to date that will no doubt get praised by Lynch fans. It would be nice if he tried to something crazy like use a script.

[TylerDurden182]

Originally posted by therealjohng
3 hours of Lynch fucking with my mind? I'm there.

Fuck yeah.

[arto_j]

Seems like it'll be the usual Lynch wankjob and then some.

Comments like this don't really raise my expectations either :

"But Laura Dern, who also stars in the improvisation-based movie, admitted she is still baffled by the film herself. "The truth is I didn't know who I was playing - and I still don't know," she confessed. "My experience on this film was very unique to say the least, even after working with David for a long time. Each day was a different direction. Each day was a different idea because we didn't have a script we were following. Each day he would tell me what to say and do, and I would repeat it."

From an article on the Guardian The Guardian

[ThirdOuting]

Seriously brother, why does this bother you?

These people's opinions will be trampled on by others who's reactions are such things as "Lynch at his best!", and vice versa. It happens. You are the viewer. You will form your own individual opinion. You don't know what side you're going to sway towards until you see it. So if you have high expectations, don't let one or two (not even completely) negative reviews get you down.

It can't come around sooner for me.

[ThirdOuting]

Positive review, by the way...

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30031

[The Heart Collector]

Its funny how people say 'weird for weird's sake' like thats supposed to be BAD in a David Lynch movie.

[Brando @$$ Fat]

Originally posted by Cronos
not at all surprised by this news and it sounds like its going to be another crappy incoherent mess

Not as crappy and incoherent as what I just left in your house.


Lynch rocks, I'm there no matter how bad the reviews are.

[DareDevil]

Originally posted by Cronos
not at all surprised by this news and it sounds like its going to be another crappy incoherent mess

*cough* Mulholland Dr. *cough*

[chinton]

For everyone mentioning Mudholland Drive you guys realize aside from weird extraneous stuff its a pretty basic half of its a dream film. Not nearly as confusing as it sounds. Thats why I like it Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive it somewhat has a structure despite their weird natures.


Weird for werids sake is not awesome. Why should I care about it when there are no clear narrative or characters to attach any interest too.

[ThirdOuting]

Originally posted by chinton
For everyone mentioning Mudholland Drive you guys realize aside from weird extraneous stuff its a pretty basic half of its a dream film. Not nearly as confusing as it sounds.

You're too right, mate. Mulholland Drive can be summed up in one sentence. That's not to say everything else in it has no relevance, it all makes perfect sense. I cringe everytime someone calls it a mess.

[Goberg]

im looking forward to this, but i bet its gonna take ages before we get a premiere here in norway.

havent seen blue velvet yet (though, I have the dvd). But Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway are some of my favoritte movies.

[sAtAn666]

The only part that bothers me is the bashing of the film's visuals. I really don't mind getting mindfucked by Lynch at all, but I'd be disappointed if the visuals are crappy. In all of Lynch's previous films, the cinematography was excellent.