Inland Empire. David Lynch. 2006.

By Emacs! What a magnificent movie! I have no idea what it’s all about, but there wasn’t a nanosecond of that movie that I didn’t love watching what’s in front of me. I usually type these things during the boring parts of movies, or when getting more wine, but I was so completely riveted by this movie that I’m typing this afterwards.

My guess it that Lynch didn’t quite know what he was going to make when he started to film it, and it sort of developed from there. But everything makes perfect sense in a sort of associative way. I think that’s a major part of Lynch’s genius: His scenes make emotional sense even if you can’t quite make out how they make logical sense.

I probably have more problems making out what’s going on than most people, because my memory for, like, names, faces, words, things, concepts, and, er, names, is very very bad. And in this movie where people sort of appear … where it makes sense, I’m sitting here going “is that… that guy? No, that’s that guy! Who’s that guy then?” a lot of the time.

But Laura Dern, man. Without her, there wouldn’t have been a movie here at all. She totally carries it, and is completely marvellous throughout.

And I wonder about Lynch’s decision to use digital video for this thing. I mean, back in 2006, digital video basically sucked, and that leaves you with a grainy, bandy experience today. But it does give you something kinda special, because it allows Lynch to film using natural lights and drive the camera way into the faces of the actors.

For good and bad, but mostly good.

And I just absolutely adore the end title sequence: After a pretty harrowing three hours, we get an absolutely, totally joyful ending to it all. It’s Lynch taking care of us all.

And Agnes B., of course.

I guess this might well be Lynch’s final movie, but it’s a good way to go out.

(And then we got the wonderful Twin Peaks coda.)

Prospect. Christopher Caldwell. 2018.

This is a grungy sci-fi movie. It kinda uses its (presumably) very low budget to its advantage: It’s basically about Lo-Tech Gold Miners… In… Spaaaace. Everything looks cheap and dirty, but accidentally on purpose.

But it also means that most of the movie is some morons walking around in a forest with some swirly pollen CGI-layered on top. Since the characters aren’t very compelling it’s a bit tedious.

That is doesn’t really make that much sense either doesn’t help.

La Genou de Claire. Éric Rohmer. 1970.

Oh, this is part five in a six part series? OOPS!

I didn’t know. Well, Rohmer seems to have a tendency to do his movies in series, but they don’t… seem… to have to be watched in any kind of order?

As usual with Rohmer, it’s filmed in gorgeous surroundings, and it’s basically people sitting and standing, talking to each other about their lives. And as usual, it’s unclear what the movie is going to “be about”, if that’s a thing.

I haven’t seen that many Rohmer films… half a dozen? Something like that? This seems quite different from most of the other ones. But… perhaps… I’ve only seen his 80s and 90s movies? This is from 1970, and the er people on the screen really deliver lines. I mean, as opposed to what I’m used to seeing: People kinda sorta ad-libbing while adhering to the loose plot going on. These lines seem very very written.

So I’m not surprised to read:

The film received the Louis Delluc Prize for Best French film of the year, the 1971 Prix Méliès and the Grand Prix at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. It was named Best Film by the National Society of Film Critics and Best Foreign Film by the National Board of Review. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globe Awards.

It was a huge international success. Vincent Canby called it “something close to a perfect film.”

Because this is the least interesting Rohmer movie I’ve seen. The cinematography is gorgeous, and the er actors are charming, but the plot (and it has more of a plot than any of his other movies that I’ve seen) is downright creepy.

I find it interesting that all the rapturous reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are written by men. I mean, they all are, even the one negative one.

The saving grace of this movie (beyond how beautiful it looks) is really the meta bits. It would have been insufferable without those bits… and it’s Rohmer’s least interesting movie anyway.

I mean, of the ones I’ve seen.