Let me start by saying that to me, the best films, the ones that are truly original, are the films which take something known and accessible and twist it into something superbly strange. Take Donnie Darko, which espoused a fairly worn-out formula of the troubled youth battling teenage angst and flipped it entirely on its head both stylistically (clever camera-work), generically (mixing sci-fi with mystery/drama/fantasy) and narratologically (hello wormholes). Or take Requiem for a Dream, whose script might be mistakened for a one-sided parable on drug use, but avoided this pitfall by forcing audience engagement via its immediately accessible characters and a confronting techno-classical soundtrack. Better yet, take the Kill Bill duology, with its countless intertexts and colourful genre plays. However stylisms aside, these films are enhanced by something which Inland Empire completely lacks - an engaging, three-dimensional protagonist (in Requiem's case, there are several).
That's why, for all its clever discourse and discursive underwriting, I'm still at a distance with this film. My boyfriend was quick to point out the clever allusions to Hollywood and what he saw were, I suppose, some pretty shocking feminist readings; the lead actress does, after all, get stabbed with a screwdriver on Hollywood Boulevard - a stunningly provocative scene, to be sure. Yet interestingly, I found the cameo role of an Asian prostitute and her blundering speech about trying to get a bus to Pomona stole the scene. It was, to me, the most gripping part of the film, at least in terms of characterisation. I guess the reason I'm at a distance with this film is because you're kept a such distance from the main character. Never are you allowed to really penetrate her character. Instead, you are forever trapped in a kind of suffocating theatrical wheel that tries to dabble in mystery but ultimately stinks of melodrama.
3 stars out of 5.
That's why, for all its clever discourse and discursive underwriting, I'm still at a distance with this film. My boyfriend was quick to point out the clever allusions to Hollywood and what he saw were, I suppose, some pretty shocking feminist readings; the lead actress does, after all, get stabbed with a screwdriver on Hollywood Boulevard - a stunningly provocative scene, to be sure. Yet interestingly, I found the cameo role of an Asian prostitute and her blundering speech about trying to get a bus to Pomona stole the scene. It was, to me, the most gripping part of the film, at least in terms of characterisation. I guess the reason I'm at a distance with this film is because you're kept a such distance from the main character. Never are you allowed to really penetrate her character. Instead, you are forever trapped in a kind of suffocating theatrical wheel that tries to dabble in mystery but ultimately stinks of melodrama.
3 stars out of 5.
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