Part 1
WARNINGS
APPROACHING THE FILM
HISTORIES
THE BASICS
IMPORTANT FACES

Part 2
MURDER
AN UNPAID BILL
PURGATORY

Part 3
THE CONNECTION
DREAM ORIGIN
IT TAKES A VILLAGE
ENLIGHTENMENT

Part 4
RABBITS
AXXON N
RED, BLUE, GREEN
AFTER MIDNIGHT
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
MORAL OF THE STORY

Reference
LYRICS
DELETED SCENES

Discuss
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Part 4

Details

Having discussed the organized substance of INLAND EMPIRE in parts 1, 2, and 3, let's now cover some of the remaining details—the leftovers. These are topics which, while they may not be essential to understanding the film, are still interesting and important.

Rabbits

For many INLAND EMPIRE viewers, the rabbits are one of the most confusing and irreconcilable parts of the film. My reaction was very different—not because I had some amazing insight, but because I had seen these rabbits before. These rabbits, in fact, appeared in Lynch's episodic short film series, Rabbits. Search for "lynch rabbits" on sites like YouTube, and you'll find most of the episodes. So when I first saw the rabbits appear in INLAND EMPIRE, I was pretty much taken out of the movie and almost laughed.

I initially suspected that Lynch was simply recycling old material—that it was a bit of a copout, if an amusing one. I've revised that opinion. If you watch Rabbits (the series) with the details of INLAND EMPIRE in mind, you'll see the origins of the film. Rabbits basically set a new standard in Lynch cryptography. For starters, the rabbits speak in a purely nonlinear fashion. I'll leave it to someone else to piece all the bits together, but we can definitely say that there is a decent amount of meaning there.

As a result of this heritage, it seems throughout INLAND EMPIRE that the rabbits are repeating much of what the human characters say, like "it was red" and "it was the man in the green coat." In actuality, these lines were present in Rabbits long before INLAND EMPIRE was made.

Lynch does connect the rabbits directly with his human characters. At the beginning of the film, we see a rabbit enter the royal-looking Old Poland room where Janek meets the Phantom. [76] The three Polish mediums fade into the three rabbits in identical positions. There is even more rabbit/human juxtaposing in the deleted scenes.

In one scene, a quasi-demonic ritual seems to transport Jack Rabbit directly into Mr. K's room. [77, 78]

You may remember, too, that when Sue enters Room 47, we discover that it's the rabbits' room. Imagine that—they are physically connected with the purgatory, and perhaps even adjunct gatekeepers of it.

Extra credit assignment: Watch all the Rabbits episodes, paying special attention when the door (yes, the one with the 47 on it) opens. This happens quite a few times. What does it mean, exactly, in this spiritual context?

And more generally, what do the rabbits mean for INLAND EMPIRE? My best guess—considering the vaguely satanic content and the general feelings of confusion and danger surrounding them—is that the rabbits and their creepy little world represent something like the mysterious and mixed-up darkness of the subconscious. This, in other words, is precisely what Sue and Lost Girl are trying to purge, the world they are trying to emerge from.

[76]

[77]

[78]

AXXON N

When the film begins, these are the first words we hear:

Axxon N. The longest running radio play in history. Tonight, continuing in the Baltic region, a grey winter day in an old hotel.

In the scene that follows, we see Lost Girl brought into a hotel room and treated like a prostitute by a mysterious man who is neither the Phantom nor Smithy. I believe this scene is figurative and that its purpose is to establish what I call "the prostitute state." After all, this is another connection—Sue and Lost Girl are both made to feel like prostitutes by the abusive men in their lives. (Sue even cries out "I'm a whore!" in one of her late scenes.) While they are definitely not literal prostitutes, they do cheat, and thus they sink into the prostitute state, which leads to self-loathing and spiritual desolation.

What's the point of Axxon N, then, if that's its story? In short, it connects Sue with Lost Girl. The aforementioned scene is most likely viewed by Sue in some part of her "dream." She is the audience. If she really was 41 in 1960 like she says, radio plays would have been a part of her youth. She can relate to them. Notice that the announcer has a clear American accent. Also notice that the retro popping noises, which were all over the early Axxon N bits, make a subtle return as Sue approaches Room 47 and Lost Girl. The connection could not be more obvious. Sue even tells Billy about the Axxon N door:

"I see this writing on metal, and I start rememberin' somethin'. I'm remembering, and this whole thing starts flooding in... this whole memory. I start to remember."

And so, throughout her post-life journey, Sue finds Axxon N written on doors as clues. Each time Sue opens an Axxon N door, she is brought closer to the truth, closer to Room 47, and closer to Lost Girl. (Axxon N represents Lost Girl for Sue, so it makes sense.) The first Axxon N door is in the alley behind the On High In Blue Tomorrows movie set. [79] Sue going through that door causes the Nikki Grace fantasy to crumble entirely. The second Axxon N door is out on the street much later in the film. [80] When Sue sees it, she turns to see her assassin and runs down the walk of fame. Sue finds the third Axxon N door deep in the hallways which lead to Room 47. [81] This leads her to a supernatural replica of Smithy's house, where she finds the gun.

If we want to take a step back, we could say that Axxon N, being "the longest running radio play in history," represents the never-ending cycle of life, death, and reincarnation in which Sue and Lost Girl participate. The point is that every life is its own story, and that we've only just seen a few of them.

[79] Axxon N appearance #1.

[80] Axxon N appearance #2.

[81] Axxon N appearance #3.

Red, Blue, Green

You may have noticed that there are a few bright colors that make many dramatic appearances throughout INLAND EMPIRE—red, blue, and green.

Lynch likes these colors, particularly red and blue. He's used red and blue in his films so much, in fact, that some Lynch fans have established a shortcut method of interpretation based on them. It goes something like this.

Red represents deception, things that are hidden, general falsehood, the dream state, or evil. Blue represents truth, reality, discovery, waking from the dream state, or transition between states. We're not quite sure what green represents, since it's a new color.

But here's the problem.

If you believe in any kind of rational interpretation of the film, these colors only sometimes match with their corresponding associations. When they do match, they can be very meaningful. When they don't match—which is often—well, that sort of calls the whole thing into question. Lynch is probably messing with us a bit. For example, when Sue puts her shiny blue robe on the bright red theater seat, what does that mean? In the making-of documentary, we actually get to see Lynch planning that scene. This is what he says:

Laura has to have the blue robe. Listen to me! The blue silk Chinese robe. She wears that into the theater. Don't let me forget that robe! She's comin' out of Paramount Studios in that robe. She's goin' directly to the theater in that robe. [He turns to Laura.] You will then take that robe off in a certain shot, lay it on a red chair, which will look beautiful...

Wow, how anti-climactic is that? I expected him to say something about meaning, like the blue robe, representing truth, covers up the red chair, which represents the dream state, and thus truth has overcome the dream. But no... he just says it will look beautiful.

Yes, these colors have been extraordinarily meaningful in previous Lynch films. And yes, some of these associations work seamlessly in INLAND EMPIRE. But there are so many distinct uses of blue, red, and green that this color equals meaning method becomes something like a flawed religious text lost in translation which is illuminating in some places but intensely contradicting elsewhere.

[82] Red.

[83] Blue.

[84] Green.

After Midnight

"It had something to do with the telling of time."
- Jane Rabbit

There's a surprising amount of content in INLAND EMPIRE about time. If Sue "lost a bunch of years," as she tells Mr. K in the deleted scenes, we can understand why time is so important. She also wears that gold wristwatch to go back in time, as it were.

One can discuss time in a general sense, but I'm going to get specific. There are two times that appear repeatedly in the film—9:45 and "after midnight." It's sort of like the colors, except it's consistent. So here's my working theory.

Old Poland = 9:45
Inland Empire = after midnight

I recorded each appearance of these times in the film. Let's look at the evidence and see if everything lines up.

In Old Poland, a passerby asks Smithy what time it is. His answer? 9:45. [85] Pretty straightforward.

When Sue is wandering through the dark network of halls near the end of the film, a clock on the wall reads 12:13—after midnight. [86] Again, straightforward.

After Smithy slowly takes the gun from the Polish medium, one of them yells at him, "Right away! It's after midnight!" While this scene is in New Poland and not Inland Empire, that's fine, because New Poland is chronologically concurrent with Inland Empire. We are dealing with the second set of lives (the reincarnations), whereas the first set of lives originated in Old Poland.

Visitor #2, when she visits Nikki Grace (and attempts to cut through the fantasy), says, "I suppose if it was 9:45, I'd think it was after midnight!" She's basically telling Sue that she's confused about whose life she's actually living. Recall that it's a frequently abrasive conversation.

You could also say that 9:45 is a time before murders, while "after midnight" is a time of great urgency and impending conflict. Note that both instances of "after midnight" occur near the retrieval of the pistol (one by Smithy, and the other by Sue).

So it does work, basically. I'm not sure it's very meaningful, though—just one of those fun mini-puzzles that Lynch put in the film.

Unsolved Mysteries

There are a few questions I haven't answered. They may not even be answerable with rational explanations. In any case, I thought I'd include them here for the record. If you think you can answer these questions, or if you'd like to discuss this analysis at all, please contribute here.

What exactly is the meaning of the doppelganger on the walk of fame?

At 1:13:50, Sue looks down and sees a more desperate version of herself sitting on the floor, looking up with terrified eyes. Is this the same doppelganger? Is this a representation of the prostitute state?

Who is the blurry-faced man in the opening hotel room scene?

A woman dressed in red (probably named Karolina) leads Sue to Mr. K. Is hypnosis involved? Is she part of the spirit world?

We hear the line "it was the man in the green coat" several times in the film. Smithy and Janek both have green coats. What does this mean, if anything?

What does Sue say at 1:52:20?

At 1:16:40, Smithy sneaks out of the house. Is he going out to kill Billy?

Why does Sue (to Mr. K) describe the Phantom as a marine from North Carolina, when he's definitely not?

Moral of the Story

We've discussed meaning throughout this analysis, and there certainly is a lot of it. Now, let's think about meaning more generally. As a whole, what is INLAND EMPIRE all about? What messages does Lynch want us to leave with?

The obvious interpretation is that INLAND EMPIRE, like Mulholland Drive, is a disapproving comment on Hollywood. I think that's close but slightly misleading. For example, if you believe that the movie is real, that there really is a curse, and that Nikki and Devon are simply swallowed up by their movie, you might be led to believe that Lynch is commenting disapprovingly on the movies—that they can swallow up their actors. Besides being an incoherent point, it strikes me as something Lynch wouldn't say.

What if Lynch were commenting on Hollywood, but his point is precisely the opposite? Remember what is real and what is not. In our non-Lynch reality, Hollywood productions are real, and movies are, in a sense, fake. In INLAND EMPIRE, the Hollywood production is fake (the Nikki Grace fantasy), and the movie—its characters and story—is real. This is a fascinating reversal of expectations, and it's also a relevant point.

There's a ton of specific spiritual meaning in INLAND EMPIRE, and we've covered it in great detail. I think it's crucial, though, to review what exactly Lynch is driving into our heads with all that spiritual content. In the end, I think it's all about the purging of negativity, darkness, evil, or whatever you want to call it. (Lynch would call it negativity.) In fact, you can't hear David Lynch talk about meditation, self-improvement, or spirituality without hearing something about cleansing one's self of negativity. The credits song, "Sinnerman," gets this point across rather forcefully. The singer is looking right into the camera, singing a rather in-your-face song about sin—looking at us, the "sinners." This is a confrontation. However, it should be clear that the kind of sin Lynch is concerned with here is the sin of self-destruction—sin against one's self.

E. B. White once said that "analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog—few people are interested, and the frog dies of it." Does the same thing happen to INLAND EMPIRE when you pick it apart? Does robbing yourself of that thrill of confusion permanently damage the film? Not in my experience. What you lose in blissful mystery, you gain in meaning. And since INLAND EMPIRE is a spiritual film, its raw elements remain essentially mysterious.

NEXT: Reference