Wizard of Odd still at work
By PETER RAINER THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Laura Dern, Justin Theroux in a scene from ‘Inland Empire’

David Lynch always has been an imagist rather than a conventional storyteller; his visual fantasias spring from his subconscious in ways that, while common enough in the avant-garde experimental realm, rarely surface in the commercial cinema. This is one reason why I still admire him, even though I have trouble making it through his movies. He is resolutely anti-mainstream and I am convinced nowadays that no great art will come from any filmmaker who isn’t.

But even in the rarified realms of the avant-garde, there is good art and bad art. “Inland Empire,” which clocks in at almost three hours, is a long sit. You can lean back and let the movie wash over you - which is what audiences also seem to be doing at “The Fountain,” that head-trip movie for the multiplexes - but the experience is far more e x a s p e r a t i n g t h a n exhilarating.

Shot over a period of five years in high-definition video, the aptly named “Inland Empire” may seem startling to audiences who never have seen a David Lynch movie before. But, in fact, it recycles many visual, aural, and thematic tropes from his earlier films - the only thing missing are the dancing dwarves. Or did I miss them?

Lynch’s attempts to make the psychic atmosphere of a movie mimic the mind-set of its characters also is not exactly revolutionary.

But “Inland Empire,” in the end, is a great big puzzle movie that even Lynch appears not to have figured out. Maybe he doesn’t need to. Maybe it all makes sense a second time. I really doubt it, though. The obsessive fans who went to work on the arty obfuscations in “Twin Peaks” will once again have their hands full, and it is for them that this movie seems most designed.