A little boy went out to play. When he opened the door he saw the world. As he passed through the doorway he caused a reflection. Evil was born. Evil was born and followed the boy.
‘A Woman In Trouble’. A film-within-a-film. A world mediated by grainy images. A disruption in time. The Hollywood sign. What does it mean to act? What does it mean to make a film? What does it mean to understand any of this? If all the world’s a stage then who is the audience? Are you at the heart of terror? Perhaps you should go deeper.
Have you ever woken up and not known what day it is? Or felt like you’re in a body that doesn’t belong to you? Or been walking somewhere but, suddenly and quite inexplicably, forgotten where you were going?
And what of the rabbits?
This is a story that happened yesterday. But I know it’s tomorrow.
I know that INLAND EMPIRE was directed by David Lynch. I also know that it stars Laura Dern. I know this because I’ve seen it. Yet as the grainy images play out on screen, Dern’s character, actress Nikki Grace, moving through the underbelly of Hollywood, I cannot imagine anybody working on the film’s construction. INLAND EMPIRE feels as though it was birthed on some disgusting memory card and vomited out to the world via computer virus.
It is like something uncanny. Something I have witnessed before and, at the same time, something I have felt my entire life.
If today was tomorrow you would be sitting over there.
Imagery of Hollywood radiates through INLAND EMPIRE. Not Hollywood in its glamorous spectacle, but Hollywood’s filthy delirium. Nikki is, perhaps, a once great actress, cast in her comeback role. The film that she has been given the lead role in is rumored to be cursed. Last time the script was taken on, its two lead actors were murdered. This is passed off as Hollywood gossip, the inherent evil of the script isn’t even something considered until Nikki can no longer tell the difference between what is happening on screen and what is happening in real life.
Nikki wanders through the filth of LA, overlooked by the Hollywood sign, inhabiting soulless mansions and film sets. Hollywood itself is a nightmare, Nikki’s nightmare, an inescapable world of cameras and screens. No event in Hollywood is tangible, none of its inhabitants exist as themselves. Even if Nikki isn’t being watched, she is. Even if Nikki isn’t reading from a script, she will find that she is. Even if Nikki is herself, she will quickly find herself someone else.
If the apparatus exposed itself, laid bare at the intersection between Hollywood and Vine, perhaps INLAND EMPIRE is what it would look like.