On the BBC programme Film 2007, Jonathan Ross described Inland Empire as ‘a work of genius ... I think’ and I am inclined to agree with him. Recorded in digital video, the film reminded me a little of the later works of Jean-Luc Godard – but Godard on a very bad and long acid trip.I see no point in trying to give a detailed synopsis of the plot. I will simply say that Laura Dern plays an actress named Nikki Grace who gets a leading role in a movie called ‘On High in Blue Tomorrows,’ directed by Kingsley (Jeremy Irons) and co-starring Devon (played by Justin Theroux) as Billy Side. It turns out that the movie may be some kind of remake of a Polish film that was never finished because of ‘something that went wrong’. Inland Empire is far more than this though – it ‘folds’ and ‘looks in on itself’; it is about the relationship between film and audience, the actor and the performance. Fittingly for a film that is partly about being an actor, Dern and Irons were both brilliant in their roles.
There is always a danger with incredibly obscure ‘arty’ films that you see it and do not understand any of it, but see that other people have said good things about it and assume that the director must be doing something really clever so it must be good (there may actually be a little bit of this going on in my reaction to the film but such is the nature of the film and the effect it had on me that I am unsure). Inland Empire certainly requires a lot of work on the part of the viewer. You have to want to see it and watch very closely or you won’t get anything out of it and will hate it. But then again, even if you watch very closely you may still end up hating it. It is ‘a work of genius... I think’, but one thing is for sure, it has kept me thinking about it long after it has finished and it will probably be a film discussed and studied for decades to come.
