The Rice Thresher, Vol. 94, No. 27, Ed. 1 Friday, April 13, 2007 Page: 16 of 24
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16
THE RICE THRESHER ARTS
FRIDAY, APRIL 13,2007
Lynch exposes Hollywood's seedy underbelly in Empire
by Luke Stadel
FOR THE THRESHER
Director David Lynch (Mulholland
Dr.) seems hell-bent on leaving audi-
ences scratching their heads. Lynch
enthusiasts and amateur sadists will
not be disappointed by his latest effort.
Inland Empire.
'inland empire'
★★★★★ of five
now playing at
Greenway theater
Checking in at a svelte three hours,
this is not a film for the fidgety. How-
ever, those with stern constitutions
will experience a force field of images
and a cacophony of sounds — very
little of it dialogue — woven together
to create a film with the richness and
nuance of an 800-page novel and with-
out the risk of paper cuts. Like a Mack
Truck hauling a load of Hollywood's
dirty laundry, the film slowly builds
momentum, finally barreling through
viewers' eyes at redline speeds and
spilling its vitriolic cargo all over their
frontal cortexes during a phantasma-
goric final half-hour.
The story of the film revolves
around middle-aged actress Nikki
Grace (The Prize Winner of Defiance,
Ohio's Laura Dern), whose career is
on the rise after landing a plum role
in a film directed by ascot-wearing
auteur Kingsley Stewart (Kingdom of
Heaven's Jeremy Irons). Her co-star
in the film-within-the-film is Devon
Berk (Miami Vice's Justin Theroux),
who Lynch fans will fondly remember
as the winter who received an ass-
whooping from the philandering and
pink paint-stained Billy Ray Cyrus
in Mullholland Dr. Distinguished
character actor Harry Dean Stanton
(Alpha Dog) also shows up in a few
memorable scenes as Stewart's side
kick Freddie Howard.
The film quickly devolves into
a maelstrom of narrative threads,
including the "real" life of Nikki, the
Polish film being remade by Kingsley
and company, the remake itself and
a fourth narrative that still has this
reviewer in the dark. Blood-vomiting
clown faces, screwdriver-inflicted
stab wounds, and Hollywood Bou-
levard hookers doing the Loco-mo-
tion punctuate a sinuous stream of
nightmarish tableaus. The film is
beautifully composed in digital video,
a medium that is a perfect match for
the painterly sensibilities of Lynch's
unique aesthetic.
Eschewing a score by longtime
collaborator Angelo Badalamenti
(The Wicker Man), Lynch deftly
employs the work of avant-garde
Polish composer KryztofPenderecki,
whose work was featured in Stanley
Kubrick's The Shining. Topped off
with a smattering of pop songs from
yesteryear, a smart cut from Beck's
latest album and Lynch's signature
industrial noise, the soundtrack
drones like a sinister melody cranked
out by a Satanic organ grinder. In a
film where dialogue serves more to
obscure than to inform, Lynch has
created a sonic pastiche worthy of
his stunning visual designs.
Inland Empire brutally disem-
bowels Hollywood fabrications of
American family life, so it is no surprise
that, like most of Lynch's work, the
film passed through awards season
without much fanfare. However,
intrepid viewers should not miss the
chance to see this film at the venerable
Landmark Greenway theater.
1P&
. -
1
DERRICK HUANO THRESHER
Rice Dance Theater's performers show audiences that modern dance does not have to be esoteric, (see story,
page 13)
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Bursten, Julia. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 94, No. 27, Ed. 1 Friday, April 13, 2007, newspaper, April 13, 2007; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443077/m1/16/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.