By turns infuriating and exhilarating, Inland Empire is David Lynch gone senile: whereas cinema’s dream curator struck gold with the relatively logical narrative capsizing of Mulholland Drive, his latest plunges deeper in search of Hollywood’s back entrances and dark portals, and rarely if ever resurfaces for air. While bewilderment is synonymous with Lynch movies, Inland Empire is so far removed neurologically from anything else in the director’s oeuvre that Lost Highway comes across as unfurnished and comparatively sane; thus, in achieving singularity, it approaches the very edge of insanity. Grasping a long overdue lead role with two hands, Laura Dern (magnificent, playing her most fucked-up character since Citizen Ruth) stars as an actress cast in a promising melodrama – a Polack folktale which just happens to be a remake of a cursed screenplay. There are also phantom prostitutes, musical numbers, sitcom rabbits, copious cameos, and ever-present signs of lurking evil to contend with. Lynch unsettles proceedings from the outset with a stilted, oddly retarded mise-en-scene – a shambolic merry-go-round of uncomfortable close-ups, pregnant pauses, and drunken delivery – before pushing us through not one, but a succession of rabbit holes that lead nowhere except down. What this bottomless pit reveals though isn’t so much a descent into lunacy, but a liberation of the mind; no longer hindered by the process of film, Lynch runs amok with the digital format, streaming his unconscious with all the mileage of a YouTube video blog. The murky, pixelated vision certainly adds to the anxiety of the ‘mare, as does the staccato horror: abrupt, ad hoc moments of classic Lynchian terror. For all its maddening incomprehensibility, Inland Empire is never uninteresting, and affirms what Lynch thrill seekers have known since day one: that in relinquishing to the experience, you’ll hang on every low drone, mental trapdoor, and hysterical shriek for dear life. In a nutshell, cinema at its most perilous.—Tim Wong