The Case for Lynch Land

Well. What can I say? I knew what I was in for.

I love David Lynch films. They are imaginative, use strange camera techniques, incredible actors, and I always come out enjoying the experience. Not that I have any idea what most of this movies mean or can explain the plot… if there is one.

Inland Empire was another excellent addition to his list of incomprehensible yet beautiful works (including Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway). There were more unusual moviemaking techniques, such as extreme and uncomfortable close ups; grainy footage; spot lighting with flashlights, dark and disturbing scene lighting and music. The actors, especially an amazing turn by Laura Dern, all performed amazingly given the incredible circumstances and situations in which they found themselves. And imaginative – well, how else can one describe a film that seems, in the final analysis, to make next to no sense whatsoever, even if the director claims there is some… somewhere?

With David Lynch films, meaningful expressions and the mundane (yet actually incredibly meaningful) dialogue (or monologues; or silences) replace the action and oh-so-clever encounters of other films. This makes the choice of actors that much more important, and Lynch seems to both pick incredible actors and get them to perform to the best of their ability, such as Laura Dern, whose most incredible moments involve her just recounting stories to camera under the harshest lighting and looking ragged and beaten. Other familiar faces , like Jeremy Irons and Mary Steenburgen, show up, but this is Dern’s film – well, as much as it can be anyone’s other than Lynch’s.

Story-wise. Well, impossible to recall. But I both loved and was freaked out by the bunnies. I can’t explain it, you really need to see it.

Actually, that was what I was going to say to cover off this film. “I can’t explain it; you need to experience it”. But my verbosity has got the better of me. Because I liked it.

Verdict: Definitely not for everyone, but for those who love Lynch, definitely a large slice of cherry pie with some mighty fine coffee as black as midnight on a moonless night.