HALFBORN: An Inland Empire Analysis

[abelmont8]

Ha! I couldn't agree less with Ebert here. Have always loved lost highway and it really doesn't seem like it should take all that much intuition to realize that it's core narrative has a truth and logic to it. One could come up with countless stories of one's own involving some kind of similar disjointed causality, but it's so clear that Lynch brings a real spiritual depth and everything is backed up.

If you're able to find the piece of analysis that really struck you before, I'd love to read it!
But I know how hard it is to find stuff sometimes.
I met Matt Dillon a few years ago at an art opening of his in Berlin. He told me about a dinner he had with Lynch and some others, I think at Cannes, and Lynch told an obscure parable about two men, meeting on the road to Fez, Morocco. One of the men accuses the other of some kind of odd/banal lie, which doesn't turn out to be a lie? And the "punchline" had to do with "Why, when I see that you are going to Fez, did you lie and tell me that you were my friend?" It was of course extremely obtuse/ koan like.
I've found the parable written out before online, with no reference to Lynch, it is a real folk anecdote, but try as I might, I can't find it again now :/

In re familiarizing myself with Lost Highway now, I see that it focuses more heavily on desire and masculinity than Inland Empire. I think what blew me away most of all with Inland Empire, and that your writing helped bring into focus, is that Lynch has never relied less on what I would call "collective unconscious" ideas, or psychoanalysis maybe. Not that I don't love these elements in his films, but Inland Empire is shocking in how it seems to present such an immanent/real journey of one extremely personal, and relatable, soul, without much exploration of America, desire, mass culture, etc. In my opinion at least