★★★★★
[Re-watch]
They discovered something inside the story.
Lynch's work has been so close to me for so long that it is a part of me, like a screwdriver in my abdomen. How it came into my life was strange; I wasn't really into film growing up, being nearly a deacde older than my sister I wasn't exposed to anything that she couldn't see. I didn't really start watching movies until I was seventeen and started buying DVDs out of the dollar bin at the pharmacy where I was working, and it's likely that the most out-there film I had seen was 'Dark City' [thankfully, the director's cut, which I still adore!] at the time when 'Inland Empire' came into my life. I had a dear friend who turned me on to Lynch, who for whatever earthly reason gave me a copy of Inland Empire to as an introduction to his work.
Until this viewing, it tripped me out so much that anyone would start their Lynch journey with 'Inland Empire'. It is easily the least-accessable of all of his work, and it was certainly more than I could follow at eighteen when I plunked it in for the first time. Now, though, I'm sure that this impacted not only my approach to Lynch, but to all films. It was my Emerald City at the end of a yellow-brick road and I don't think that I will ever share an experience with film like I did with 'Inland Empire'.
What time is it?
From where I am sitting now, my understanding of the 'Inland Empire' is still not concrete; I continue to approach the story fluidly, and I come away with something different with every viewing. The core of the film is the emotional atmosphere, but more than that it is the relationship between artist and subject, where the two overlap and intertwine and become a third entity with a life of it's own. It's clear that Nikki becomes Susan in a way, engulfed by the source material that she relates to so deeply but it is also the imagination of a truly real Susan, who becomes Nikki as an escapist fantasy where her life is a movie and she is not herself but an actress playing the role of 'Susan'. There is also the Lost Girl, who finds her escape through movies and television and seems to transform the film as she relates to it, altering the story to mirror her life and suffering.
Nikki becomes Susan as she immerses herself in the role, it changes her as she grows to understand that she is unhappy in her own circumstances. She escapes into this role, like a painter being pulled into her painting and when she dies at the end of the film, I like to believe that she has the opportunity to start over, realizing her husband is abusive and that she will end up much the same as Susan if she continues to follow this path. Even though her life is infinitely more privileged than Susan's story as it continues to spiral and devolve, in many ways she is, herself, the Lost Girl.
What time is it?
When you watch a movie, it becomes a part of you. It may not grip you and will just pass through and out of you like waste, but sometimes it gets into your bloodstream and lives in your heart. Film has the power to change us, and when we see ourselves in the creatures on the screen, it has the potential to alter and divert the path of our lives. The story of 'Blue Tomorrows' is not a remake or an original script; it is a film that tells the story of so many people who are lost.
What time is it?