You’re high on spice if you don’t think this is Lynch’s worst. I certainly love some of the moments of peculiarity (particularly the first ascension of the floating fat man), and a few of Paul’s successes feel genuinely triumphant, but overall, this seems like a case of a director’s incompatibility with the source material. It’s wall-to-wall exposition—essential for such a dense novel to fit into less than two and a half hours—yet Lynch is the director who never explains his films. MacLachlan’s got voiceovers that explicitly explain the reasoning behind his actions, yet all Lynch will say regarding Inland Empire is that it’s about “a woman in trouble.” What did Lynch expect of the final product? Did he really think he’d make something he’d be satisfied with? I guess it’s a game of chance when you enter production with someone who produced Europe ‘51, La Strada, Serpico and Death Wish and Flash Gordon.
Note 1: A bunch of the costuming, scenery, and musical choices are quite similar to On the Silver Globe even though Globe was shot before Dune and then came out after. So no chance of Lynch emulating Żuławski—maybe Dune was inspired by The Lunar Trilogy?
Note 2: Finished Lynch’s feature films! I think it’s the first director’s filmography I’ve completely finished of that length.