Sweet Sixteen: Inland Empire

Classic from 2006 by the brilliant David Lynch.

Lynch’s hallucinatory vision was in full force in this beguiling film, with Laura Dern in a tour-de-force performance as, perhaps, an actress whose dream role quickly devolves into nightmare. Intrigued by the possibilities of early-noughties consumer-grade digital video, Lynch started out shooting tests with Dern and then grafted on scenes of Hollywood machinations, conjugal intrigue, Polish curses, and even a rabbit-headed sitcom parody. The result is as dark, unpredictable and utterly compelling as anything he’s ever done, both an epic recap of a career—including appearances by Lynch veterans Justin Theroux, Laura Harring, Grace Zabriskie, Diane Ladd, and the inimitable Harry Dean Stanton—and his most radical and experimental movie since Eraserhead.

Celebrating our 16th festival, we’re looking back to 2006 (the year it all started for Flatpack!) and picking out a few interesting films from that year.