Oscar,

Sorry that I have taken this long to respond to the thoughts on Inland Empirethat I requested of you.

Actually, your thoughts have caused me to go back and reconsider the film and while I still can't honestly recommend it to anyone, I do feel as if my confusion about it has been allieviated somewhat. In fact, your comments have caused me to think another viewing of Mulholland Drive may be in order.

I guess your comment that "IE can be enjoyed without attempting to piece together a narrative" is what makes me feel better. I kept expecting certain thing, in their repetition, to become clarified and images that made no structural sense to be part of a resolution and the lack of one only intensified my frustration. The fact that Inland Empire can be construed as nothing more than a fever dream gives me a little peace of mind.

I still feel, though, that the dread I was looking/hoping for didn't materialize and your pointing to Grace Zabriskie as a case in point didn't do it for me. I found that scene silly and overlong and typical of the film in general--just too long. I seem to recall Dave Kehr on his blog noting that the film was three hours of Laura Dern's reaction shots and that pretty much sums it up for me. While I understand the reaction shots were probably needed to provide the audience with at least some semblance of identification, there were far too many of them and, after a while ending up signifying less and less.

I guess I should be giving credit to David Lynch for his unstinting ambition and devotion to the avant-garde. I mean, no one, but no one, is even attempting to make these movies in mainstream Hollywood and Lynch has earned the right to make a movie like this if he wants. I just wish he had an interest in letting his audience in on his thoughts.