Inland Empire (2006)
eerie and clever
11 November 2016
I thought 'Inland Empire' has a basic story, about a curse. 'Axxon n' was a Polish story of a prostitute that evolved into murder, allegedly cursed and sympathetically passed on. At the start there is a scene from the play, with the actors faces obscured enigmatically.

A film was attempted of it, '4/7' , clips of which are shown periodically, and the curse was passed along. Finally 'On High in Blue Tomorrows' was made based on the other stories and the star, Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), comes to realize how the curse is working and actually ends it. I am guessing that David Lynch added some dream imagery, mostly Nikki's.

It seemed to me that one of the victims of the 4/7 movie, a young girl, apparently a prostitute, is trapped in some sort of limbo, in a room and has a metaphorical view of how the curse is working. She also had contact with some sort of hypnotist wizard who seems to be the protagonist in all the stories. Nikki Grace seems to come into psychic contact with this ghost girl, who tells her if she folds a slip over, burns a hole in it and looks through the hole she will see visions that explain some of the mysteries. Nikki does this. While filming 'On High in Blue Tomorrows' her costar Devon (Justin Theroux) also gets the feeling about the curse as Nikki tries to explain it to him. She is having constant visions of the original story 'Axxon n', and tries to explain it to Devon who really wants to understand but doesn't quite, although their lives seem to be somewhat of a parallel to their movie script. I thought Nikki was also having dreams about her situation, symbolized by some rabbit people in a Room 47 who say symbolic things about the stories. Devon and Nikki are also having an affair and their spouses suspect and both plan on doing something about it.

Clever, eerie story I thought.
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