‘Inland Empire’ Blu-Ray [Criterion Collection] Review: David Lynch’s three hour multiple-persona Hollywood fever dream gets the long-awaited Criterion treatment with a director-approved 4K transfer.

Criterion has been on a winning streak with its 4K restorations of David Lynch’s filmography including Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. Now coming off the heels of their 2022 release of Lost Highway, they’ve turned their attention to Inland Empire, Lynch’s ultimate headscratcher that was roundly trounced upon its release in 2006.

At the time, fans and critics were still high off of Mulholland Drive, his dreamy tale of switched identities and the dark underbelly of Hollywood. Inland Empire felt like Mulholland Drive on steroids, and no one knew how to deal with it.

Unlike Mulholland’s rich celluloid textures, Inland Empire (aptly subtitled A Woman In Trouble), was shot on digital videotape and was a true 3-hour patience tester, one even more abstract and fractured than Lynch’s unusual oeuvre as it was cobbled together from multiple storylines that the filmmaker admitted he tied together only tangentially.

Laura Dern plays Nikki Grace, an actress recently cast in a On High in Blue Tomorrows, a remake of a Polish film titled 4/7, opposite leading man Billy (Justin Theroux). The two are told by their director (Jeremy Irons) that the original film was never completed, as two actresses starring in the film were murdered.

Shortly afterwards, Grace begins to mentally deteriorate, taking on the personality of Sue Blue, the sex worker she plays in On High. Soon Grace can no longer successfully determine reality from scripted, which in turn leads the audience to debate the very narrative itself.

Things continue to unravel and fracture for Nikki, with the film infused with the dream logic Lynch is known for. But here it’s even more discombobulated than usual. The filmmaker throws all of his obsessions into a blender, resulting in scenes like a sitcom featuring immobile rabbits and bizarre dance routines.

It’s Lynch’s weirdest film. Even Eraserhead. Let that sink in.

Picture:

Part of the crudity of Inland’s harsh visuals comes from Lynch ditching celluloid in exchange for digital video. It makes for a jarring comparison to his earlier work, looking more like a soap opera than a film.

It’s bound to the limitations of the medium back in 2006, which raises the question: can converting a digital film to 4K add newfound life, or did it scrub some of the low-res charm from the proceedings?

The answer, is the film has never looked better, even on the Blu-ray disc, which is sourced from the 2022 4K transfer. There’s more definition in darker moments, and more natural skin tones than the original’s more yellowish appearance.

It all helps to fill in visual details that were missed in its original incarnation, and a more pleasing aesthetic appearance overall, all the better to help submerge the viewer into Lynch’s haunting vision.

Sound:

Inland Empire features two standard audio tracks: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English LPCM 2.0. English SDH subtitles are provided for the film as well. Lynch is always a stickler for punchy cinematic sound, and this is in full effect on this release.

Extras:

Criterion really went the extra mile in the special features department for this release, including two documentaries about the making of the film (Lynch 1, and Lynch 2), directed by blackANDwhite (who also directed the 2016 doc David Lynch: The Art Life).

Both docs are compelling looks behind the curtain, showing the normally jovial filmmaker at his wit’s end dealing with what appears to be a rocky production process.  Lynch 2 features what might be the definitive Lynchian quote, when he tells a crew member “I want an Eurasian, like 23, that’s beautiful. I, and, but, eh, we’ll knock her down a little bit. I want a pet monkey, a spider monkey. Pet!”

In addition, there is a new conversation between Dern and her former Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks The Return co-star Kyle MacLachlan. They both wax poetic about their shared history with Lynch, and how their creative processes aligned.

Also featured, is 75 minutes of deleted scenes, the 2007 short film Ballerina, excerpts from Lynch’s 2018 book Room to Dream, cinematic trailer, excerpts from Richard A. Barney’s book David Lynch: Interviews, and new cover art.

Final Verdict:

It seems like many of Lynch’s films, specifically Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Lost Highway, have undergone a critical reevaluation in recent years, looked at far more favorably than upon their original releases. And now is the time to reinvestigate Inland Empire, featuring Lynch at his most quizzical and Dern at her boldest.

Inland Empire is an intensely divisive film, but one that any Lynch fan or lover of experimental cinema needs to see for themselves. And this new restoration is the definitive way to appreciate this cinematic molotov cocktail’s brusque textures.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New HD digital master, made from the 4K restoration supervised by director David Lynch, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio and uncompressed stereo soundtracks
• Two films from 2007, LYNCH (one) and LYNCH2, by blackANDwhite, the makers of David Lynch: The Art Life
• New conversation between actors Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan
• More Things That Happened, seventy-five minutes of extra scenes
• Ballerina, a 2007 short film by Lynch
• Reading by Lynch of excerpts from Room to Dream, his 2018 book with critic Kristine McKenna
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Excerpts from Richard A. Barney’s book David Lynch: Interviews
• New cover based on an original theatrical poster