David Lynch’s landlocked sovereignty

Saw David Lynch’s Inland Empire last night. It’s long, boring, funny, creepy, ponderous and disposable. One thing is for sure: exiting a theater in winter at 11pm in a cold climate and walking past a cemetery to the train makes survival a very realistic concept…On with the dissection:

Like most of Lynch’s work, Inland Empire’s images and performances provoke dissertation-length analysis from critics, myself included.

I was recently reading a book of essays on the nature of reality and our experience of it by…have you guessed? Yes! Of course, they are by Philip K. Dick (PKD). I had to stop reading because I felt I was circling a drain, metaphorically. His point was that time is all happening at once, but our brains filter it into a linear experience leaving us with the false impression that one thing leads to another. Certain drugs and psychological disorders can reveal the truth to us: that linear causality is bullshit. Experiencing time all at once makes it hard to draw meaning from events, but also makes the need to do that irrelevant since one would be all-knowing and all-seeing. If one were able to “see the true world”, however, one would have a hard time telling a story. Stories about people with tenuous grips on reality dot PKD’s work like a leopard’s spots, and it seems (in this regard) David Lynch is a kindred artist.

In Lynch’s movie, Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) seems to exist in a between state. Her belief in causality is unchallenged until she starts working on the film within the film called “On High in Blue Tomorrows”. There’s an old, dark secret about the production, knowledge of which sends her down a rabbit hole of funhouse-mirror reflections of her life, the production and the lives of some Polish prostitutes. When she surfaces at a place and time, often she’s been there before…or will be there. She’s not sure and neither are we. What keeps her going is the certainty that something bad is going to happen to her — actually, it might have already happened — and she has absolutely no knowledge of who will do it, where, when, how or why. Sounds a bit like Memento mixed with Total Recall and monster hit of Substance D, huh?

There are also infinite versions of our timeline (alternate universes) “happening” parallel to ours in an “orthogonal” dimension, according to PKD. Yeah, you read right. So maybe Nikki has a chance to avoid the bad thing and slip sideways into a reality where she lives an idyllic TV life. Maybe with a family of rabbit-people, or the recovering prostitute in Poland, but probably not with the Blue Tomorrows co-star she’s having an affair with.

If you expect a tidy conclusion to these “events” you are unfamiliar with David Lynch. There is arguably no plot either. There is humor, conflict, sex, violence, exposition, and confrontation, but Lynch isolates and reduces them to see if we still recognize them as storytelling devices. There are also symbols, metaphors, themes, signs, and beacons. They are familiar, but reduced and isolated as well. Is the camera’s lingering gaze my cue to begin interpretting an object’s meaning, or do I have to wait for the actor to see it, paw it, ponder it?

Blogging the “F” out of concept cars

It’s car show season and I didn’t even know it until today. Once again Detroit proves it has no idea how to deign something that doesn’t look like Syd Mead drew it 20 years ago, but the Asian makers have quite a bit more flair than in recent memory. I am especially intrigued by a utility vehicle that the Internet has been blogging the fuck out of, so why not add to the fray?:

Nissan’s Bevel is a love-it or hate-it concept that seems to have true utility in mind. It’s a van-like thing with fully folding seats for a large internal hauling volume. It has much less glass than most utility-type vehicles — suggesting Nissan really thinks people will value its utility. The driver’s seat has a cockpit-like design, keeping all controls out of the way of potential cargo.

The Bevel also wants to turn your head, but isn’t too concerned with you falling in love. Like a muscle car, it just wants to be noticed. The muscle car analogy goes further because the Bevel has a definite retro vibe. Beyond the pearly mocha finish, there’s an air of a 1970s conversion van, mixed with the Landmaster from Damnation Alley, and a 1969 Camaro about this thing.

With all that said, the Bevel has an obvious playful side. Your first impression of it might be an overgrown VW Golf or Scion xA. Its silhouette goes from chunky to sleek and back depending on your angle. The effect is almost comic. This marriage of utility and style gives me the impression that Nissan is firing a shot across the Honda Element’s hood with the Bevel…and answering Toyota’s futuristic FJ Cruiser at the same time.

Here are other articles with lots of pics:

» Detroit Auto Show: Nissan Bevel is a fresh approach for a utility vehicle - Autoblog

» Jalopnik: Obsessed With The Detroit Auto Show

» KickingTires: 2007 Detroit Auto Show: Nissan Bevel Concept

» Detroit Auto Show: Nissan Bevel hybrid concept details and high-res photo gallery - AutoblogGreen

» Auto show notebook: Ford Interceptor flexes; Nissan’s Bevel is a toolbox to go - USATODAY.com

» Nissan Bevel | Concept Cars

» 2007 Nissan Bevel Concept - The Car Connection

» Nissan Bevel improves on fashionable and utilitarian Cube

Speaking of Children of Men

Found a posting about a review of Children of Men on one of the blogs on TheStranger.com. Then I wrote this comment. Yay for me!

I agree that the BR [Blade Runner] comaprisons are irrelevant. Just a marketing agency understanding that a lot of people like that film passionately. I’m sure the response they intend to create is, “I bet it’s not as good as BR, but I’ll go see it just to make sure.” So cynical! Disturbing to know that BR-enthusiasts are a demographic!

On another note. This quote in Yair’s review bothers me: “Doesn’t it create in me a reality more real than itself?”

Just un-answerable deconstructionist gibberish. That’s simply how fiction works: the better it’s done, the more you believe it. The only way for it to be convincing is for you to fill in the gaps with your own imagination.

The more cuts there are in a film, the less like reality it appears to the eye. There were takes that were so long in “Children of Men” that I nearly passed out from forgetting to breathe. The director wisely too inspiration from Brian DePalma and the like. I think the future of creating reality in filmmaking is about longer and longer takes that make the action appear as fluid as possible. Not just a backlash against music video editing techniques, it is technologically easier to do that ever before.