Even if everything doesn’t get ported over, Criterion has assembled a rather satisfying set of features for the release, all of the content worth the effort. This film contains flashing images which may affect viewers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.

Or Lynch was just having fun with the new and inexpensive technology (he shot the film on an outmoded, five-year-old PD150 digital camera), without the Hollywood overhead. Careful scene-by-scene adjustments involving noise reduction, dialogue levels, and overall dynamics decisions were made under Lynch’s supervision. When a warring martial arts sect fights over a pair of mythical swords, the results are breathtakingly epic, in one of director Wong Jing’s most under-appreciated wuxia extravaganzas. That's kind of fun, but the really inexcusable thing about Studio Canal using their old subtitle files rather than either the original US subs or the new-and-improved subs that Criterion has advertised is that the film's opening sequence once again lacks a crucial subtitle that has always been there in US theatrical and DVD releases of the film, but has been absent from the UK releases.Truly, the movie shares DNA not with traditional narrative cinema but with the legacy of confrontational underground montage (plus an injection of Lynchian frisson) exemplified by Kenneth Anger (another LA mythologiser), Jack Smith, Gregory Markopoulos and Abigail Child. In einem Sammelsurium aus Gefühlsfacetten sind es keine katharisch von Schuld reinigenden Visionen des Szenarios "Vater siehst Du nicht, dass ich brenne". The only other big disappointment is the lack of anything around the film's interesting restoration process. A prostitute watches the proceedings on television and cries; there are sections in Polish, a strange fairytale about half-formed people with evil shadows, and then a weird sitcom with people in rabbit heads.

However complex or surreal David Lynch’s films get, there is usually a strong narrative thread that drives the plot forward – whether that is Naomi Watts trying to help Laura Harring’s confused amnesiac in Mulholland Drive or Bill Pullman investigating who the hell is sending creepy videotapes to his house in Lost Highway. Auch hier wird wieder die Rolle der Frau ausgehend von einer Definition über ihre Sexualität, denn eine Prostituierte wird als solche über die Sexualität definiert.

The film concludes the journey with samadhi, nirvana, enlightenment, a spiritual awakening being realised, where the grand illusion is seen once and for all, with no true separation and oneness, with suffering, even being seen as ultimately unreal (ego death). Aber es gibt dennoch ein Kernthema in diesem Film, dass wenn auch nicht direkt gezeigt so doch zentral in diesem Spinnennetz aus Eindrücken liegt. Blues and reds also have a bit of trouble blending cleanly into blacks, creating all sorts of blocking patterns.

Inland Empire, however, dispenses with a coherent narrative thread pretty early on, resulting in a film that is remarkably obtuse and opaque, even by David’s Lynch’s standards. Despite what I always assumed was Lynch’s aversion to special features, Criterion’s editions of his films have been packed with some great material that even manages to delve a little into the subject matter and themes of the films themselves.The production is a remake of a work filmed several years ago but never finished because the main actors died before shooting wrapped.