In 2006, David Lynch released one of his most divisive movies, Inland Empire. Inland Empire is… it’s a movie alright.

Inland Empire follows Hollywood actress Nikki Grace (played by the always great Laura Dern). She’s looking for a comeback and thinks that On High In Blue Tomorrows will be the ticket. As the shoot for the movie goes on, Grace starts to become her character in the film, Sue Blue. This is the only part of the movie that’s not completely surreal. There’s a bunch of weird shit in the movie like a bunch of talking rabbit people who have a laughtrack over their scenes:

And a bizarre scene set to The Loco-Motion:

And whatever the fuck this is:

Approaching Inland Empire as a normal movie is not recommended. Instead, it should be approached as a filmed nightmare. Under these terms, the movie is fucking amazing.

The production of Inland Empire was quite unusual. The movie began shooting without a finalized script (Lynch developed the film on a scene-by-scene basis) and it was shot with a Sony camera with low resolution instead of normal film stock. This would normally be a huge problem but it fits perfectly with the tone of the film. The film lack of planning perfectly reflects dream logic and the poor picture quality gives it an ominous atmosphere.

Laura Dern is just amazing in the movie. She aces both Nikki and Sue perfectly. David Lynch campaigned for her to be nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards that year in the most Lynch way possible.

(pictured: Lynch campaigning for Dern.)

The film is quite divisive, even among Lynch fans. (People who don’t like Lynch films already despise the film for its rejection of conventional film logic.) It depends on how far the viewer goes in accepting the film on its own terms. Personally, I love Inland Empire, it’s own of my favorite movies.

Hope you all have fun posting here tonight and have a great night. On April 5th, I’ll cover Twin Peaks: The Return.