who is s/he?

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JFK
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who is s/he?

Post by JFK »

this is just past the 2:10 mark, which is the during the ormond/dern screwdriver chase, but this is in the minute or so cut to poland where lost girl asks the valley girls those magic words "look at me and tell me if youve known me before" to which the valley girls mock her(as they and L.B. do a few minutes earlier). the first pic is a capture of a very quick close up of a figure behind LG. my question being, who is this? at first i thought it was another valley girl, but now im thinking it looks a lot like smithy's son. the eyes and nose especially. and this would confirm LG's actually having a son with piotrek(im just calling him that from now on, as that is his real name, and i think tho he may be different characters in IE, all those characters are different manifestations of piotrek). but im not totally sold, as there are feminine features to the face as well. but this is a pre-adolescent boy we're talking about, and sometimes certain boys can have a more androgynous look until the testosterone kicks in. the first pic is the figure that is in question. the second is from one of panning shots going to and from LG and mystery figure(which are basically the same pan(just reversed) to lori and lanni(i know i was confused too, had to do some reseach and cross refrencing to figure out which valley girl was which(that reminds me, one of the girls real surname is ladd. makes me wonder if she could possibly be related to diane ladd and laura dern(mother and daughter)). i will then post a shot of smithy's son from the end for comparasion.
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Last edited by JFK on Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:47 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Carl
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by Carl »

I think not a boy, but a 'hypnotized', drunken woman.
Previously, on this Board, she has been identified as played by Gruszka, but I'm not convinced this is the case.
JFK
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by JFK »

or maybe one of the other valley girls? none spring to my mind, but this could be a possibility. tho more likely it is another polish woman. how can it be gruszka? shes standing in the foreground wearing a completely different coat and her hair is tucked under her hat. the figure in the background i wonder about(and there are two other people, looking like they are walking on the street, but first things first) has a grey fur coat on, seems rather short, and is leaning against a ground fixtrure. the one time close up recently viewed made me think of the boy at the end, but i readily admit there are multiple details that point towards the character being a women(not least of all the seemingly long hair, or just an ornate fur coat). but the distinctive(re:DARK) contrast of the film made the similarities of the facial structures(large eyes set apart, long nose, oval face) strike me.
MichaelPW
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by MichaelPW »

two ideas: either the ninety year old niece a few decades before the year 2006 or the same person who stands before her. this could be, because the "guardian angels" point with her hands as if they wanted to say something like "Of course, we have seen you before. You are there again right behind you. Do you want to tell us, that you don`t know that?"
JFK
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by JFK »

MichaelPW wrote:two ideas: either the ninety year old niece a few decades before the year 2006 or the same person who stands before her. this could be, because the "guardian angels" point with her hands as if they wanted to say something like "Of course, we have seen you before. You are there again right behind you. Do you want to tell us, that you don`t know that?"
i can see that, the way that lori and lanni laugh and lori points, like "LOOK, BEHIND YOU", altho i also made the connection to the phanotom, in that he uses his hands and fingers in a unique way to hynotize as if she was imitating him. but i think their manner mostly relates to the first "HELLLLOOO" street scene, as it is just the valley girls and dern mocking gruszka's plight, so they continue to do when hollywood and vine transforms into a street in lodz. the background character caught my attention mostly because of the close up. there is SOME kind of reaon as to why he/she is shown in a close shot. because i saw similar features on smithy's son, and that was a tidy way to give his character context, i thought it might have been him. i can still see it, but the more i look, the more i see a female, young, but definitely not as young as him. she has lots of hair, and the clothes are definitely more "lady-like" in accordance with the stylized poland in IE. but i just dont see gruszka, even tho that is a plausible idea(hell, what isnt in this film). every feature of the face is different than gruszka.
stronger jawline, more sunken cheeks, longer and wider nose, darker eyes etc. i dont know, its just not a question with me. and the comparison is made all the more easier by having their close ups right in sequence.
i just thought of something. what if it was piotrek's(my shorthand for every character this actor plays, please dont take it as more than that) lover and/or wife? we only see her from behind(the lady in white) and in the tracking shot of her on the ground, stabbed, dead. and even then not that well. but not the actual murder. unless i just cant see it in the darkness, even having seen it in the theatre and on HD widescreen televison. i know there's a panning shot of a dark factory after the shot of gruszka with the screwdriver when the scream is heard, so i would assume thats when the murder takes place, as gruszka is shown terribly upset in the stairwell immediately afterwards. maybe thats why lori points and twirls her finger, to show that behind her is the person she has taken life from(and seen before!)
(tho as to her resposibility for the murder, i still have the thought that she is working under the spell of the phantom, as ormond does. is she ultimately responsible? yes. is she morally responsible for the murder? maybe. but this is besides the point).
MichaelPW
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by MichaelPW »

I assume that there`s a connection between the woman in Poland asking if they have seen her before and the Dern character "in the future" in the sense of a kind of reincarnation. The Dern character in the future seems to have an advantage in comparison to the woman in Poland: She`s aware of someone being behind her. The woman in the past doesn`t seem to have the possibility to understand her guardian angels. In addition the guardian angels doesn`t seem to do their job quite well and even seem to be malicious. The woman in the future seem to be quite sure to know what is to do. She knows where to go and she even knows the password. We know that the Ormond character was hypnotized by the phantom. So maybe the woman behind the woman in Poland was hypnotized by the phantom as well. Why has the woman in the future the means to do something against the phantom (against herself, respectively)? Because she has access to Mr. K, while "Gruszka" didn`t has the chance to reach Mr. K? But maybe "Gruszka" had the knowledge of where to find Mr. K and gave that information to the woman in the future in the deep level of consciousness scene.
Carl
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by Carl »

:oops:
Oops, I mistook the figure you were speaking about.
I think she is one of ' the girls' that are Sue's , perhaps imaginary, friends. I mean one that we've seen before.
I do tend to get their names confused.
MichaelPW
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by MichaelPW »

Maybe she`s indeed the woman in white we see from behind. Maybe she will murder the woman in front of her, because "she will not let him have her". But who`s she? A regular prostitute? Or a prostitute "Piotrek" fell in love with? That wouldn`t be the trade, would it?! That wouldn`t be the marketplace, would it?! The same a few decades later? The (professional) deal would be just to act and not to fall in love with the actor.
applesnoranges
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by applesnoranges »

I'd say the first pic is of one of the two girls, either Lori or Lani, I never learned their names, but the two who are joking around about the phantom gesture. The second one is Gruszka as Lost Girl in the snow. And the third one is Smity's Son in Smithy's House.
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by JFK »

but lanni and lori are shown in the same panning shot facing LG, im talking about the figure behind her in picture #1 and #2 which i think may be the woman in white. other than her not looking like any of the other valley girls(or lanni or lori(who also are the only ones to ever go to poland)), shes positioned behind LG in the two panning shots of that scene(and with two other figures farther in the background). the street is to her left, like LG, but closer, indicating shes behind LG and not one of the valley girls. also, she is passive, an onlooker, so her purpose there seems differnet. the only character i can place there is the woman piotrek walked out on, who cant have childern, and who was stabbed with a screwdriver, knowinly or unknowinly, by LG. it is a mirror reflection of the nikki/billy/piotrek or sue/smithy/billy/doris relationship which are the other major character plots in IE. so, for now, im saying its the woman in white.
applesnoranges
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by applesnoranges »

JFK: I'll have to go through it again following what you say. I was only saying who they looked like to me. That they would change positions would be interesting but would not necessarily indicate a different character. In the sequences before and after that, Laura Dern's character is on both sides of Hollywood Blvd. The curly girl laughing moves smoothly from L.A. to Poland and then vanishes, so I don't expect any of these people to stay in one place. More after I look again.

But as for who is the woman in white etc., after Kiddo disappeared (???) I became more and more convinced of his/her view that the woman in white is Lost Girl. The reason that seems right to me is, for want of a better way of putting it, because it's kind of the unexpected I come to expect in IE. Also because her voice is so similar to when she is talking to the phantom ... and because she is the only female in the movie who speaks Polish. Still thinking though.
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by JFK »

i can see yours(and kiddos) point about the woman in white, and i will not deny the physical similarities with LG, but i think if you take into account the context of her(T.W.I.W=the woman in white) scenes, but i see no way she can be LG. first, their voices are different. LG's is lower, TWIW is higher. second, piotrek and LG were lovers. is that debatable? i dont think it is. they both show longing and searching for each other, such as when the piotrek LG knew, of older poland, first shows up on her TV screen in the hotel room. the camera cuts to LG, whose face is startled at seeing him, then she starts to cry. add to that the seance scene where she tries to reach him, and the end of the film in which they are reunited, and that is to me enough evidence that they have strong feelings for each other and do indeed love each other. and both of them are in other relationships(just follow my reasoning here before taking issue with this idea). piotrek is seen walking out on TWIW, who we only see from behind at that time, because of their arguement in which TWIW is saying piotrek will "never have" the other woman(also it seems he has a person to meet as he stands in one spot looking down the street(which i believe can only be a meeting with LG)). and in the "who is she?" scene(which is right after gruszka murders TWIW with a screwdriver later in the film) is the shot of lanni asking to the camera the question with TWIW in the background, in the same room and position she was in when piotrek walked out on her(shortly before 9:45!) then superimposed is the the shot of the woman LG stabbed, dead from her wound, then LG and the phantom meet on the street, the phantom tells LG someone he has seen her with has died, and piotrek is superimposed as a corpse. to me that a big neon sign that says TWIW is the same woman LG kills. as that shot is pretty cut and dry for me that TWIW and the corpse are the same person. and rather explicit that LG kills this woman(we see LG in the stairwell very upset after the murder), not the other way around. third, in the scenes dern sees of poland after LG shows her how to "see" with the burning silk, we see the arguement between piotrek and TWIW takes place right after a tense exchange between LG and the phantom, who also seem to be in a relationship of sorts, and right before the scene of the phantom beating the bejesus out of LG. now i know lynch isnt the most linear strory teller(to say the least) but having those scenes in sequence makes me conclude they are basiscally happening at the same time or right after each other. and LG looks just like she does in all her "old" poland scenes(except the murder of course, where she wears her hair just as dern does at the end of the film, lopsided ponytail and all), her hair is pulled back and made to look short, her dress, boa, and sequins are all black. she does not resemble TWIW in this aspect. and since piotrek and LG are lovers, why would TWIW being saying what she does if piotrek wasnt indeed off to see his illicite lover, LG. if TWIW is LG, who is she forbidding piotrek to "never have"? to me it only makes sense that since piotrek and LG are lovers, he would be going to see her, and has his partner(TWIW) angry. just as the phantom was angry at LG. it does not even make illogical sense for TWIW to be LG. it just doesnt fit in the dynamics of the characters in IE and the way the story is told and shown. i see them as the parallel to the sue/doris relationship in OHIBT.
applesnoranges
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by applesnoranges »

JFK wrote:i can see yours(and kiddos) point about the woman in white, and i will not deny the physical similarities with LG, but i think if you take into account the context of her(T.W.I.W=the woman in white) scenes, but i see no way she can be LG. first, their voices are different. LG's is lower, TWIW is higher. second, piotrek and LG were lovers. is that debatable? i dont think it is. they both show longing and searching for each other, such as when the piotrek LG knew, of older poland, first shows up on her TV screen in the hotel room. the camera cuts to LG, whose face is startled at seeing him, then she starts to cry. add to that the seance scene where she tries to reach him, and the end of the film in which they are reunited, and that is to me enough evidence that they have strong feelings for each other and do indeed love each other. and both of them are in other relationships(just follow my reasoning here before taking issue with this idea). piotrek is seen walking out on TWIW, who we only see from behind at that time, because of their arguement in which TWIW is saying piotrek will "never have" the other woman(also it seems he has a person to meet as he stands in one spot looking down the street(which i believe can only be a meeting with LG)). and in the "who is she?" scene(which is right after gruszka murders TWIW with a screwdriver later in the film) is the shot of lanni asking to the camera the question with TWIW in the background, in the same room and position she was in when piotrek walked out on her(shortly before 9:45!) then superimposed is the the shot of the woman LG stabbed, dead from her wound, then LG and the phantom meet on the street, the phantom tells LG someone he has seen her with has died, and piotrek is superimposed as a corpse. to me that a big neon sign that says TWIW is the same woman LG kills.
Yes, I follow all that as one line of logic.
as that shot is pretty cut and dry for me that TWIW and the corpse are the same person. and rather explicit that LG kills this woman(we see LG in the stairwell very upset after the murder), not the other way around.

I'm not sure of that. As many times as I've seen that scene, I can never decide if she has come downstairs upset over having stabbed someone or if she has been stabbed, and like Nikki, drops the screwdriver. The three female stars are all seen with screwdrivers, and we can see that Ormand has been stabbed with one and Dern has been stabbed with one. So it would follow another kind of logic for Gruszka to have been hit also.
third, in the scenes dern sees of poland after LG shows her how to "see" with the burning silk, we see the arguement between piotrek and TWIW takes place right after a tense exchange between LG and the phantom, who also seem to be in a relationship of sorts, and right before the scene of the phantom beating the bejesus out of LG. now i know lynch isnt the most linear strory teller(to say the least) but having those scenes in sequence makes me conclude they are basiscally happening at the same time or right after each other. and LG looks just like she does in all her "old" poland scenes(except the murder of course, where she wears her hair just as dern does at the end of the film, lopsided ponytail and all), her hair is pulled back and made to look short, her dress, boa, and sequins are all black. she does not resemble TWIW in this aspect.

Another thing I can never sort out, so perhaps it is deliberately impossible, is this: One one level of the story Nikki and Devon are shown as real people playing the parts of fictional Sue and Billy ... and the film is said to be a remake of 4-7. In both of these Polish scenes of fury between couples, we hear the popping sound of an old movie. But I never see a clear counterpart in the Polish scenes to the real/fiction relationship of the Dern/Theroux couple. So it is not clear to me that Lucas and Gruszka here are playing the same part that they play when she watches him lovingly on TV, when he goes to the séance to find her, etc. TWIW may be the fictional character of an actress whose name we do not know and whose character relates differently to Lucas' character in the film than she does in her own life.
and since piotrek and LG are lovers, why would TWIW being saying what she does if piotrek wasnt indeed off to see his illicite lover, LG. if TWIW is LG, who is she forbidding piotrek to "never have"? to me it only makes sense that since piotrek and LG are lovers, he would be going to see her, and has his partner(TWIW) angry.

I'm not trying to be difficult here just to be perverse, but that is exactly what makes me mistrust that idea. Now it could be as you say except that the unknown woman here is played by Gruszka.
just as the phantom was angry at LG. it does not even make illogical sense for TWIW to be LG. it just doesnt fit in the dynamics of the characters in IE and the way the story is told and shown. i see them as the parallel to the sue/doris relationship in OHIBT.
But there is something else that must be fit into how the characters feel which, to me, makes it not so simple. TWIW is portraying someone with murderous intent and so is Gruszka going up the stairs.

Also, I think that eventually this whole thing must be seen in terms of the structure of the whole film where people repeat the lines of other characters and mirror each other in other ways as well. Many, many, maybe most scenes in the film are reflections of each other, so I think that somehow that is how the story must be told. (E.g. my example above of perhaps TWIW being played by Gruszka. She even says, "You don't know who I am."

Oh, and this answers a post above, but easier to put it here. Here is a composite. I think they all look the same:
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Carl
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by Carl »

I also do not think that TWIW is very likely to be LG. They, imo, are the two female sides of a love triangle with Mustachioed Man.
There are two interlocking triangles, with Phantom-LG-Mustachioed Man as the other.
JFK
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Re: who is s/he?

Post by JFK »

you make some good points apples. i too am still somewhat puzzled by ormond in the police station, screwdriver already imbedded in her torso, but saying to the cop she's going to stab and kill someone in the near future because she was hypnotized. to me it looks like the same screwdriver used on dern, but ormond leaves the scene while the screwdriver is still in dern on hollywood and vine, and ormond is not moving as if she herself is stabbed. she moves quite quickly in fact. i also agree that since dern had the screwdriver taken from her and used on her, if we take into account the "mirror-ing" plot aspects of IE, it would follow that a similar thing would happen in the gruszka/maybe the TWIW(i think so) but maybe someone else murder scene. but gruszka's scene after the scream and pan of the large and dark building(im assuming some sort of dilapidated factory or warehouse by the fleeting look of it) doesnt look to me like shes been physically hurt. the camera in fact goes up a few stairs then stops on gruszka on a landing, and theres no indication of the direction she had been moving. she is crying and balled up in a sitting position. not a pose that someone very recently stabbed in the stomach would be. also the fact that we are shown a corpse of a stabbed woman that is obviously in poland(the red tint, hiss sound(more on that later)) who, to me, looks less like gruszka than ormond does(and also that a shot of TWIW and the corspe are shown superimposed in the 'who is she?' scene make it explict they are the same person. who exactly? is, i admit, still left up to doubt. and maybe like you said, deliberately impossible, but what makes most sense to me is that it is piotrek's lover/wife, but thats me). this brings me to the fact that i think the polish scenes are not the unfinished 4/7 film(which most probably would have been german by the hint kingsley drops) but the old polish gypsy folk tale which he says is what the unfinished film was based on and that which the phantom haunts. i agree that the audio hiss gives it the feeling that this is another film within the film, but it could just as easily tie in with the beginning of the film, the record player and the axxon n. radio show, which is also featured in the scene where gruszka somehow communicates with dern about burning the silk. so that hiss for me is not an indication of an old film playing, but of metaphysical event occuring. that way the murder mirror isnt exactly the same with dern/ormond and gruska/whoever she is(though in MTTH, we do see a slow pan of theroux murdered, so it would seem that at least some point lynch was making the connections, maybe obscuring them in the finished IE for reasons all his own). but the important fact in this interpetation is that the events take place on differnet planes of reality, one a hollywood film, one in early to mid 20th century poland(and some others in unknown realms). yet both are fiction, as they exist within IE, the film we see. and in this aspect, i see the nikki storyline as a sort of payback for the horrible things that happened in poland, which is exactly the subject both vistors to dern talk about, an unpaid bill. dern pays gruszka's bill by enduring the expiriences we see in IE, which are refractions of what gruszka expirienced, thereby freeing her from "this wicked dream" as she and queen kelly call it, which the phantom undoubtedly had a part in creating. BUT, exactly what the nature of the phantom is is going to be different for every viewer, so the reasons behind it and our attempts at coming to a consensus are going to be murky at best. and thank you apples for pointing out that line that TWIW says "im not who you think i am". im not sure i agree with you on what it means, but i do agree it is a very telling statement. and as for the woman in the background being lanni, those caps are a good arguement. there are definte similarities to them. but at the same time, a couple of differences, which may be attributed to the digital quality of the film. im going to have to mull that over...
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