A nightmare that cannot be restored---a brief analysis of "Inland Empire"

Mckenna 2021-12-26 08:01:07

Almost the whole film is in the heroine's dream. The only shots that present reality are modern shots on Hollywood Street. (Including those who were stabbed to death, excluding those who entered the side street of the cafe with dancers)
All background sounds with radio signals and sizzling sounds are hints of untrue information. As
you can imagine, you are listening to radio dramas. Falling asleep, the radio drama said lines, these lines mixed into your subconscious, and brought into your dreams.
David Lynch has memorized the analysis of dreams upside down. Dreams are fragments, not coherent. The details are hard to remember, and I can't say it clearly with my mouth.
All I can say is that this time, Lynch used fewer screens to show the real information than Mulholland, but it was a nightmare. Of course, a three-hour nightmare is difficult to remember completely, and what you can leave after reading it is a fragmentary memory.
The heroine's setting must be able to find clues in all dreams.
I guess that this time, he took a huge experience to create a real biography of the heroine, and then designed the most terrible final nightmare of the heroine. A nightmare before death.
And it was set as a voice intent in a radio drama. This radio drama may be the end of her first pick-up, lying on the bed to listen, and accompanied by entering her dreamland. This time, the radio drama made him remember deeply.
The image of the actress is obviously her super-ego, her dreamland. Obviously, her appearance and acting skills are obviously not enough to be a powerful actress. Even the skills of second-rate actors are not enough. Lynch specially designed the actor to set off her crappy acting.
So she came to Hollywood with a dream, and unfortunately became a bitch because of her lack of conditions and the cruelty of the cruelest environment. And be a bitch for a long time.
In reality, because of a certain man, she owed a love debt, and an angry female "creditor" killed her.
Before dying, she had the last dream that she couldn't really wake up. She almost woke up, but because she was dying, the body function could not wake her, so the edge of consciousness repeatedly waking up again pulled her back. Nightmare.
The best evidence is in one of the clips. A woman told the detective that she was hypnotized and showed the wound she had pierced her body with a screwdriver and the screwdriver. It's like, you dream of water when you want to pee, or fire when the quilt is sultry. Your actual wound hurts, and that part of the dream will definitely feel pain.
The lighter of that female beggar is lit, which is the beginning of the dream, which is similar to the suggestion of the little match girl. Lynch is very bad. He connects reality and dreams with a zoom lens. The sudden appearance of the camera is a signal of the dream.
Of course, this is a movie, not a real nightmare. He has repeatedly used time-space transformation to deal with the story through montages, which seems to have no beginning and end, creating an endless cycle. This is a very great and ingenious art narrative technique.
It is also mentioned in "Analysis of Dreams" that dreams are not controlled by logical thinking, so such a large number of time-space transitions in dreams are also in line with the "logic of dreams".
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Now let's clarify the logical sequence
1. A prostitute who came to Hollywood with a dream of being a star, owes a debt of love , She was already a little nervous at this time, and learned of her insecure situation.
2. She was stabbed by the debtor on the street.
3. She covered her wound and walked a few streets until she finally fell down, vomiting blood and coma.
4. Before and after the coma, the words of the wanderer next to
her became vague information. 5. She had dreams after her "death process" and had to wake up several times, but due to her bleeding too much, her body could not support her Regained consciousness, so she was pulled back to nightmares again and again.
6. Some of the information in the dream came from her experience, some came from the feedback of her physical condition, and some were the clearest memories before her death.
Of course we don’t have to worry about it. Which dream is the first dream (I think it’s the first, because there is usually such a critical point between reality and dream, and the transition from the street to the movie set is this critical point). Because what Lynch wants to give us is a poor man whose nightmare will never be restored before his death.

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Extended Reading

Inland Empire quotes

  • Neighbor: The Evil was born and followed the boy...

  • Nikki: The ambulance guys, they say: "What the fuck happened here?" I say: "He come to a reapin' what he had been sowin', that's what." They say: "Fucker been sowing some kind of heavy shit..."