David Lynch's Inland Empire [DVD]

Rhino's DVD release of David Lynch's acclaimed 2006 film INLAND EMPIRE features a substantial 75 minutes of extra content, including a hefty selection of additional scenes, interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and more.

Shot entirely in digital video in Los Angeles and Poland, the surreal visual voyage stars Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons and Justin Theroux along with Harry Dean Stanton, Diane Ladd and special appearances by Grace Zabriskie, William H. Macy and Julia Ormond. It is nothing less than a mind-bending cinematic journey from the acclaimed Oscar-nominated director, whose works carry with them an expectation of the unorthodox and the visionary,

Bearing the classically understated tagline of “A Woman In Trouble,” the film's debut DVD release was overseen personally by Lynch, who dove further into the story to incorporate material that embellishes the narrative's central mystery. The film took over two years to complete, and Lynch worked from a script that kept evolving throughout the process. “I'm very happy with the DVD,” says Lynch, “because it continues the story of INLAND EMPIRE and people can discover “More Things That Happen.”

A voluminous collection of additional scenes that were essential to Lynch's original vision for the film, “More Things That Happen” generously enriches the universe of INLAND EMPIRE. Other bonus material includes previously unseen interviews with David Lynch and star Laura Dern, a making-of featurette, a photo gallery, theatrical trailers and footage of Lynch at home cooking quinoa, an edible seed similar in texture to couscous.

INLAND EMPIRE had its world premiere in September 2006 at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Future Film Festival Digital Award. Lynch's fascinating maze of parallel realities and dream states was also honored in 2007 with the Best Experimental Film honor from the National Society Of Film Critics Awards, USA.

In his review for the New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote, “Like the surrealist practice of automatic writing, the film feels as if it could have been made in a trance, dredged up from within,” and called it, “fitfully brilliant, a plunge down the rabbit hole of the director's imagination and a spellbinding companion to his masterpiece, Mulholland Drive.” Rolling Stone's Peter Travers hails the work as "a puzzle whose pieces you'll keep trying to put together in your head long after you leave the theater,” and Nathan Lee of the Village Voice praises Dern in the “Performance of the Year” as the trouble film actress she portrays. [Color/ 179 mins.]

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