BENNETT INVENTORY : That Moment

INLAND EMPIRE -- The bus to Pomona

It's always a nice surprise to take in a movie that's better than you expected it to be. But it's an unforgettable moment that's burned into your timeline when you see a film that ends up being exactly what you needed at that point in your life; when you find something that's like less of a movie and more like medicine. In the winter of '06/'07 INLAND EMPIRE opened in only a handful of US cinemas and fortunately for me one of those cinemas was only a train ride away - to The Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. where I missed an actual appearance from David Lynch himself by only two days. Oh well, at least he left behind his experimental three hour shot-on-video mind-melting masterpiece that engulfed me in amazement and wonder and reignited my passion to be an artist. I was at the starting point of my college internship, and anyone who's ever endured one of those would testify that it can be a soul-crushing experience that could rob you of your ambitions. But then there was this movie - a DIY feature that entirely captured and illustrated a specific mood. My mood. Yeah it's cute to order a pizza and watch a Ninja Turtles movie, but hiking through indifferent city streets in the cold darkness of a New England winter to sit and shiver in a drafty arthouse theater with my own despair was easily the best way to experience this movie. I came back, all alone, for two more viewings so I could relive this entire journey. 

Part of that experience (apart from the entirety of the movie itself) was the sound design - I knew eventual home video would never be as loud as the theater atmosphere (even as antiquated as The Brattle is). Many great movies have That Moment - for me, this one has at least half a dozen; I gasped and giggled my way through it in surprise and sometimes disbelief at its innovations and abstractions. And then, after roughly 2.5 hours as its weirdness began to seem predictable and pretentious, the movie outdoes its own incoherence as we land on three new "characters" in a 7-minute scene centered around Japanese actress Nae as she delivers a monologue as meandering and engrossing as the movie itself. It took me subsequent viewings to recognize how beautiful and bizarre this detour is in a film full of mysteries and mazes; it's this scene that best helps us understand that this artistic journey was never meant to be linear or literal, but instead a voyage of moods and ideas with a filmmaker who's flexing a newfound form of freedom, and for me, his enthusiasm is palpable. 

- Paul