How to summarize Inland Empire? Of all the films of David Lynch, yet often labyrinthine and obscure, this one is the most opaque, strange, unique, terrifying. Simply pitched by Lynch with the cryptic phrase "The story of a woman in difficulty", we follow an actress selected to play the main role of a cursed film, the first version of which ended with the death of the actors. main. But the story gets muddled when the actress seems to confuse fact and fiction, getting lost in an unstable, inexplicable world populated by ghosts and invisible threats.
A unique, disturbing, very controversial film
For three hours, Inland Empire confuses and terrifies, while David Lynch crosses all his obsessions: Hollywood and its shadows, fight of good against evil, devouring jealousy. To play this mysterious main character, he calls on one of his muses, Laura Dern, whom he had played in Blue Velvet and Sailor & Lula. Constrained in terms of budget, Lynch frees himself from all the codes by filming his feature with a simple inexpensive digital camera, giving the film a strange touch. As for the scenario, it is written day by day, bringing the film towards an uncertain dream universe, carried by the vague acting of Dern, but also Jeremy Irons or Justin Theroux.
The result is a unique, disturbing film, very controversial when it was released, but which represents the culmination of Lynch's cinema, in any case its purest expression. It will be the last feature film that Lynch will release in theaters, in 2006, only returning to directing with short independent projects or on television for the huge season 3 of Twin Peaks.
An already essential outing for Lynch fans
Seventeen years later, the film has undergone a new 4K remaster overseen by David Lynch and Janus Films, which will be available as a Blu-Ray and DVD combo on June 28 (no 4K Ultra HD, SO). The opportunity to rediscover Inland Empire without doubt in the most beautiful conditions (we are curious to see the result on such a film), since Inland Empire is accompanied in this reissue of a montage, entitled More Things That Happened, which brings together 1h06 of deleted scenes taken from the shooting, as well as a documentary of almost an hour and a half entitled Lynch (One). Absolutely essential for all David Lynch fans.
