IE is available to rent now and either no one is watching it, or people just don't want to talk about it.

Nothing to say? Don't know where to start?   

Both of the discussion threads on this forum are cold. 

Is the board just running out of steam in general?

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

I have to concur.  Unlike Mulholland Dr and Lost Highway, I don't get anything more out of it on repeat viewings.  The proverbial thrill is gone.  It's too Modernist, and not visually compelling enough to keep watching for art's sake, letting the interpretation come on it's own.  

I still haven't gotten around to purchasing, renting, or watching it. I'm hoping it will be in the local art house theater at some point.

To be honest, nothing I've seen or read so far has made me feel like I'm missing much.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

In retrospect, I think that the inclusion of the Rabbits films into the movie made me feel that there was a bit of kitchen-sinking going on with IE.  I enjoyed the movie in general, but I had to agree with my friend Nick's assessment, when he woke up during Rabbits.  He just sort of blurted out, "What the !@#$?"  Indeed.

-cg 

No, and I'm sure he doesn't either.

One thing I am looking forward to (besides the TP stuff) is the Lynch 1 documentary. I find the process behind IE more fascinating than the end product itself. 

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

I've had the DVD since it came out in August and yet I haven't watched it yet. Mostly because I really really want to be able to sit down, uninterrupted, and watch it all the way through. I unfortunately have not had what I could call three good solid hours of uninterrupted time since I got the DVD. Which sucks. Maybe this Sunday if I'm caught up enough on my schoolwork...

I just really want to give this movie a fair shake. I've heard people say it was total crap, others say it was meh, and still others who think it's brilliant. But they've all agreed on one thing...gotta watch it all in one go. Otherwise it'll just befuddle me and I'll probably end up turning it off and never coming back. LOL So. Seriously, I want to try and finally watch it on Sunday. I would LOVE to join in some IE discussions, even though I've never been quite good at dissecting films...

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

Jordan .

I love Inland Empire. It's my third favorite DL film after FWWM and Mulholland Drive. I saw it twice at the cinema and couldn't take my eyes off the screen. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I've never cared what other people think of David Lynch films, if only because FWWM has been favourite film of all time since its theatrical release and I've seen so many critics, fans and innocent bystanders run shrieking in horror over the years. I'm fascinated by how people feel about the films, but don't like that "this is what it means" mentality which is prevalent on message boards (particularly IMDB, which I despise).

I think the problem with Inland Empire is, DL films only become popular en masse once people can understand them (think Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive - they both took a while to find their niche). With the exception of FWWM I've never felt I had to understand what things mean and maybe that's why I got so much out of Inland Empire. The first time I saw the film I was sat with my mouth hanging open. The second time my brain was frantically sorting and cross-referencing. My understanding of it is totally subjective and for me that's one of Inland Empire's real strengths - that my interpretation of the film could be so solid, and personal, and nonsensical!  

Inland Empire is the closest a David Lynch film has come to being like a painting. You're not guided through it by one character who points out what's good, bad, happy, sad etc. It does have that 'kitchen sink' mentaility but the Rabbits scenes work very well and looked incredibly beautiful on a big screen. Laura Dern's godly and it was good to see Grace Zabriskie - her scene's one of the highlights of the film IMHO. My only concern is that David Lynch is becoming too self indulgent. It reminds me of a story I once heard about Donatella Versace - her stylist was trying to persuade her to tone down her startling appearence and said "Less is more" and Donatella said "No, more is more" and refused to change a thing.  

DL is one of my all time heroes but between promoting The Air Is On Fire, Inland Empire and the Maharishi university he did about five hundred interviews and by the end I was praying people would stop pointing cameras and dictaphones at him. If you insist on talking but don't have anything much to say there's a danger people will think you just like the sound of your own voice and I suppose that's true of the films too. That said, I have shamelessly purloined "a sadness", "a trauma" and "a thick beauty" for daily use, and shoehorn them into sentences at every available opportunity.  

 Me too! I'm rather fond of "real from a deep place" too!

To me, the prob with INLAND is that too many people who only really discovered Lynch with Mulholland Drive think that it can be decoded in the same way as many reviewers did with that movie - i.e. that there is a definite, singular interpretation which is the "correct" one.

I've always found this curious, since DL himself has always actively discouraged such narrow interpretations of the movie. I think the problem is, a lot of people watched MD, said "WTF?", watched it again, did some research on the net - read one of the "the first two-thirds are all a dream" theories, and found themselves overwhelmed by that interpretation. Possibly in reaction to this, DL has made a film which defies such single-minded interpretation, and demands a more active contribution from the viewer.

Not only that, but he managed to include this outlook within the fabric of the movie itself - I would argue that INLAND is primarily an examination of the imposition of narrative. So there isn't a conventional "plot", but instead there is a series of occurences which are designed to make the viewer think about the general concept of "plot". Similarly, there are no "characters" - rather individuals who convey a sense of character.

I'd say that with IE, Lynch has succeeded in doing something he's been trying to do since Lost Highway.

I was surprised to read people in this posting saying they disilked INLAND EMPIRE as a whole. I really liked it. Visually I found it more interesting than Lost Highway or Mulholland Dr. What's the problem with the Rabbits? There's always been such characters in his films and they seemed to work well in this.

I really liked the Polish actors and there are some beautiful bits of dialogue and just 'moments' - perhaps the point is they lack a narrative as involving as something like Twin Peaks - you could say that for definite. Inland Empire just rolls on as a narrative of sorts but does perhaps lack a strong line or drive making you wonder where it will lead. There is a mystery as such but it seems totally stubborn to be kept hidden or obscure.

I hear you. I'd love to see him do something a little more linear next time. I have a funny feeling that he will. But you know it won't be on film!

I couldn't agree more. If people could look on the net and find an explanation that pulled the film together I'm sure Inland Empire would be a lot more popular. The problem with fans who discovered DL post Mulholland Drive is many of them seem to need answers to everything. When FWWM was released I didn't know anybody who even liked it. I had to come up with my own answers and was quite happy to do so.      

It's more the issue to me that he had already made this for something else.  I didn't like the fact that it was obviously not intended for this film, but he brought it in because he had it.  There are indeed always weird things in Lynch's films, but I don't like recycling just to be weird.

That being said, I did like the rest of the film quite a bit.  The scenes in the beginning in the dark sound stage particularly drew me in.

-cg

If I hadn't followed the interviews and tracked the creative process that led up to IE before seeing it, I totally would have said "holy pretensious ego stroking, batman."  I love that he's still experimenting, but IE may have been more economical as an serial on DL.com

Yes, there are beautiful moments in the film.  (Roughly 20% of it, IMO) I did buy the DVD/soundtrack, after all. 

Though Lynch did make Rabbits for something else, I wouldn't say that it's obvious he didn't intend it for IE... If you had never heard of the Rabbits show would you think those scenes were out of place? A lesser director might have thought of the idea and simply inserted Rabbits clips randomly into the film, but instead Lynch transforms the clips from a mere satire of sitcoms and uses them to make a more profound statement about the emptiness of life. The Rabbits are a major motif throughout the film, and the scenes are always used well and meaningfully. Some people seem baffled by these scenes... I find them one of the most obvious parts of the film. I'm astonished at the backlash against IE by Lynch fans on this board; I'm quite certain that in 20 years this will be nearly universally considered as his most important film along with Blue Velvet.

That god damn trailer's more popular than Uncle's Day in a whorehouse!

I absolutely loved it. Its a visually stunning 'nightmare' of an experience.

Aside from the aesthetics, I found some of the acting performances and dialogue completely gripping. Laura Dern's performance goes without saying however there were notable others such as Karolina Gruszka, Krzysztof Majchrzak and Grace Zabriskie.

I particularly loved any scene with Peter J. Lucas in it. His sinister little 'tete a tete' with Devon Berk was intimidating and hilarious at the same time.

'There are consequences to one's actions and there would, for certain, be consequences to wrong actions...dark they would be.'