Okay, so I love Lynch. He's my first favorite director. I love every single movie he's done. Here is my final judgement of his ultimate Inland Empire, after one year spent analyzing and watching it so many times.

It's haunting, fascinating, Laura Dern is absolutely superb, artistically and conceptually it is one of his finest things ever. You can see that the man put his heart in this work...

Still I am regretting the Hollywood-esque heavy filmography on celluloid of his. He could have felt not totally free to express himself back then, but maybe it's just that peculiarity that made those films I love of him so unforgettable, so vivid in my mind and heart.

He took more time for every single scene there. With IE he found a freedom that he never had the same way before. Schopenhauer said something like "The most beautiful things an artist makes are the ones produced while he lived in a sort of tense, conflicted state'. I am pretty sure that Lynch made this film in a very quiet, happy state. I know this may sound ridiculous, but I am a person who writes and I am totally agreeing with this theory that something you've worked on results in being very deep and valuable when you went through some kind of hardship...You must have had conflicts, problems, issues of any kind. This movie to me makes perfect sense and it plays smooth like, I don't know, water? The first time I saw it, it looked so coherent and metaphoric to me in the end that as a paradox I must have said everyone: "This is the most linear film Lynch has ever done. It looks labyrnthic, surreal, not logic, but it has his own specific concept that is pretty much simple to summarize. It is one of the simplest films he's ever made, thus it fascinates me less than the others".

The style that characterizes IE could be defined with a metaphor. It's a house of mirrors. Think of it. That's what I came up after a year of analysis, LOL ;), but I think it's quite fitting. The real subject is Laura Dern's character which gets mirrored, replicated, transformed, deformed, overturned in a million different ways, like in through mirrors, which seem to be puzling and disorientating, but in the end all those pieces they're just one single thing: HER.

So, does that make IE less etched in my memory? Probably. I'm not saying that it is forgettable... Far from it! I loved it, but it's not even unforgettable and I am not driven to see it again and again and again like the others.

Similar thoughts, anyone?

Here's a little thing I improvised.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

In the LYNCH documentary there's a part where he is in Poland making IE and says he is depressed and has no idea what he is doing with the film or where its going. But its 'an experiment' he says.

If you watch the Region 1 2 disk DVD of IE on the Lynch 2 documentary (more watchable than the above) you can also see how Lynch was at some stage of filming. He appears quite nervy, shouty and keeps swearing quite a bit!

This could have been him enjoying himself but also I think he was pressured making IE, definitely. It seems the film took a long while to make and get it all done but also there were difficulties, perhaps with the cast.

I wouldn't necessarily agree that a film has to be made in a stressful environment to be truly good, though. Or come from a hard place.

Interesting to hear your thoughts on this film though. I like the film a lot but wish Lynch would announce what he's doing next to follow it on. Since it was such an experiment, maybe we can expect a less fractured film - I'd be interested though to see anything Lynch would make. Sometimes I wish he was more productive film-wise, even if quality control dipped. The hall of mirrors comparison is very good and apt. It's kind of comparable in the sense that I wouldn't want to go and pay to walk around a hall of mirrors in a fun-fair every time I was there - the confusion you feel in there becomes familiar quite quickly and then I'd prefer to try something else, like a pleasant walk in the country where sights don't have to be so fractured and nonsensical but can be just as evocative, if not moreso. Look at The Straight Story, full of beautiful atmosphere and scenery at points even though it is gentler and less bizarro than anything else DL has directed. Perhaps a film with that kind of thing going on but a bit of a Twin Peaks feel too, perhaps with a different kind of plot to a mystery though, if I'd like to see something from Lynch that would be it.

Sorry for replying so late.

You got my thoughts quite perfectly. About the difficulties in the making of IE, thank you for reporting those things you saw in the documentary, which I unfortunately don't have the chance to see in this country.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

It's a very telling moment in the documentary. Sure, every director is going to doubt their vision somewhere along the way, but I really don't think he meant it to be quite so experimental.

I can see how it's sort of "smooth like water" because he didn't restrict himself with anything, and just went for it, waded out into the deep end to see what was there. 

But it was apparent in Lynch One that he'd gotten too deep out there and didn't have the strength to swim back in.

The article I just quoted in the Laura Dern thread (thereeler.com/reviews/inland_empire.php) said the movie is a self "referential stroll down Lynch's hall of fame- a mirrored hall."  He says cross-references to his other films/autobiography are reflected and reflected.

But he lost sight of his audience along the way. 

"I got the discomfiting feeling that Lynch is daring his viewers not to play along. , lest they be branded bad fans or intellectual midgets, denied even the applebox on which the heights of genius are visible. From where I'm standing, IE's only capital belongs to it's F-you."

(Though I think accusing him of self-indulgence is a little strong when it seems clear he didn't mean it.) 

It's not that it's completely baffling, it's just that there's nothing beyond what you see in front of you: those mirrors that you skitter around on, never losing yourself in the world or connecting primally, like you do with the other features.

Is that sort of what you meant, mr. s?

Yes, that's what I meant. Right now I'm not well enough to find my own words.

By the way, this could just a phase. I mean, in a few months I could be there watching IE again and finding new things and new theories about it which could destroy the theory about the house of mirrors

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)