The film opens with a black and white (b/w) image of a phonograph playing a record. We hear; "Axxon N., the longest running radio play in history. Scene One. A hotel room in the Baltic...". The scene in the Baltic hotel room is then visually portrayed, still on b/w film, with the faces of the scene's two characters blurred beyond recognition. A WOMAN, in a disoriented state and unable to find her key, is led into a room by a harsh, boorish MAN (who calls the room "our room" and who, it turns out, was earlier given the room's key by the woman). A sexual transaction is discussed in degrading terms. She is told to remove her dress. A rather paradigmatic example of troubled womanhood (faces obscured; countless faces could be attached to the bodies of the man and woman), the scene ends without any clear resolution as the woman says, "Where am I? I'm afraid."

The film stock then gradually shifts from b/w to color as the woman resolves into the weeping, non-facially-obscured LOST WOMAN. She is holding a red dress over her nakedness and is seated on a green bedspread in the same hotel room. Before her is a monitor whose screen is filled with undifferentiated "snow" and the reflection of a lamp. Briefly, some images flash by on the screen. Then, again, only "snow", to which we move closer as the visual outlines of the next scene begin to appear.

There is a three-walled theatrical set with blue side walls and a green back wall (with an archway). (We briefly saw this room and its human-sized rabbit occupants on the Lost Woman's monitor (through the looking glass?). The setting appears again after we have moved into the monitor's "snow". This seems to suggest that any images (except for the lamp reflection) on the Lost Woman's monitor are actually her imaginative "projections" onto the screen.) The female rabbit ironing in a pink robe is, in this interpretation, related to the Lost Woman character (unclothed in the first scene, wearing a robe and ironing something to wear in this one). The female rabbit seated on a sofa, also dressed in pink, is related to the not-yet-seen NIKKI. Does the shared color of their clothing suggest some form of resonance between the women? The male rabbit in the black suit is related to Nikki's not-yet-seen HUSBAND (he receives a round of applause when he enters the room through the door from the outside, thereby informing us that the rabbits are playing to an unseen audience). A boat horn (transportation through space/time; transition) can be heard in the background. Dialog refers to some upcoming and vaguely ominous-sounding event. The Nikki rabbit knows less of it than the other two. Mundane, wifely lines from her about the time and phone calls are met with audience laughter. Is her role as wife being called into question? The Lost Woman rabbit moves closer to the Husband rabbit. What is their relationship? The Husband rabbit looks at the Nikki rabbit and tells her that he has a secret (coming into the room from the outside, he seems to have access to some form of exterior contact that concerns the two females). We are reminded throughout the scene that the action is being viewed (projected) by the Lost Woman.

Responding to a sound outside, the Husband rabbit leaves the room through the door. Cut to him entering a darkened space through a double door as a boat horn sounds. The light comes up, revealing an ornate room. As the Husband rabbit visually fades out, a scene involving the PHANTOM fades in (suggesting a connection between the Husband rabbit and this new (presumably Lost Woman-projected) scene and perhaps also implying some sort of inverse dimension (one fades out as the other fades in) to any relationship that may exist between the Phantom and Husband rabbit).

The agitated Phantom is talking to a sort of BOSS MAN who is connected to various individuals in the Baltic (we will meet them later). The Phantom says he is looking for an "opening" to "go in". His demeanor suggests an involvement in some activity worthy of suspicion. He seems to feel that the Boss Man has the capacity to help him with this "opening". The Boss Man makes no commitments. Associating this scene to the rabbit scene through the shared presence of the Husband rabbit, it is not unreasonable to relate the Phantom's desire for an "opening" to the upcoming event referred to by the rabbits. (It almost seems as if he wants to physically get into their room. Was he the cause of the sound outside the rabbits' door?) The reddish walls surrounding him (interpreting specific colors, whose significances will gradually unfold, as linked to certain of the film's major characters or fundamental notions) recall the red dress draping the Lost Woman and, less directly, the pink attire of the Lost Woman and Nikki rabbits. Is there some sort of relationship between the Phantom and the two females? As the Phantom scene fades out, the Husband rabbit again visually fades in, reiterating the inverse relationship mentioned above.

Thus far, INLAND EMPIRE seems to be suggesting a nesting within each other of arenas of activity: the Phantom/Boss man scene and rabbit room scene are projected on the monitor of the Lost Woman who, in turn, emerges colorized from the b/w hotel room scene which, in turn, portrays the radio play "Axxon N.". Add to this the unseen audience and the surreality of the humanized rabbits and what seems to be taking shape is a hierarchical, in-some-sense-staged plot structure with decidedly subjective content.

Next, an OLD WOMAN dressed in green approaches a mansion. (We also already saw images of her on the Lost Woman's monitor.) She enters the front door between bright, prominent lamps. (The lamp reflection on the Lost Woman's monitor is referenced, underscoring the notion that this scene is projected by the Lost Woman.) The Old Woman and her host, an actress named Nikki Grace, also dressed in green, talk while drinking coffee from green cups. After introducing herself as a "new neighbor", the Old Woman's conversation quickly turns bizarre. She somehow knows about the movie role Nikki is hoping to play and confidently informs Nikki that she will get the part. Then she mentions issues of marriage and murder, though they do not seem to be related to the movie's script. When the Old Woman emphasizes that there will be a "brutal f-ing murder", Nikki recoils from the harsh language in a manner that could be seen as characterizing her as a rather passive "Good Girl". Next the Old Woman tells a parable about a boy who, going out a doorway into the world, causes a reflection and thereby enables evil to be born; an evil which follows the boy. This seems to be a reference to the myth of Narcissus, which is concerned with the corruption of love/desire through a mesmerized, non-critical observation of an externalized (mirror reflection; mimicking; i.e. following) self. It could also be suggesting the narcissistic personality, which selfishly strives to completely overshadow that which is external to itself (which recalls the boorish behavior of the man in the opening b/w scene, who had the woman's "key"). And since a movie script is the topic of discussion between the women, the theme of narcissism also seems to be, somewhat wryly, connected to the vanity of Hollywood. Then the Old Woman tells of a girl, "as if half-born", getting lost in the market place (is this a reference to the troubled (lost) woman in the b/w scene, "marketing" her body?). Strangely, she says that the girl can find the Past through the alley behind the marketplace. She then mentions temporal uncertainty: can anyone be sure what day it is? Also, it might be 9:45 when it seemed to be after midnight. And she mentions that there is a debt that must be paid. Finally, she says that actions have consequences BUT there is magic and that if, time-wise, it were tomorrow, Nikki would be sitting on the sofa across the room. A close-up of Nikki follows; she slowly turns her head towards the sofa.

Suddenly it IS tomorrow and Nikki, now wearing a dress displaying a pattern of white, black and red, IS sitting on the sofa with two female friends. She receives a phone call informing her that she has received the movie role she wanted. The Old Woman's prediction has come true. Nikki celebrates with her friends. Behind her, the exaggerated gestures of celebration by the butler makes the whole scene appear slightly unreal. Cut to Nikki's husband, looking down on the celebration from a staircase. His black suit matches the one worn by the Husband rabbit.

In this interpretation, the Old Woman finalizes the basic structure of the film by making a number of suggestions to Nikki (involving references to narcissism, role-playing (staged acting), morality (consequences), magic, the Past, an evil male (like the faceless b/w man?, like the Phantom?) and a lost, "marketable" female) before describing a point in time in Nikki's future. Turning her head, Nikki sees a double of herself on the sofa with her friends at that future point in time. This movie-role-receiving scene will be considered the beginning of yet another projection (in the sense of dreamlike (through the looking glass) events STAGED on an individual's "inner screen"; not in the sense of projecting personal qualities onto another in one's actual environment) generated this time by Nikki, while receiving suggestions from the (new "neighbor") Old Woman. As a working interpretive model, a nested structure with four "perspectives" (action-arenas capable of containing project-ors of subordinate perspectives) is specified here: perspective one (hereafter p1); the perspective related to the "Axxon N." radio play, its paradigmatic b/w cinematic portrayal and the project-or (discussed later) of p2; the perspective which shows the Lost Woman projecting, onto her monitor, the events and characters which form p3; the scenes involving the rabbits, Phantom, Boss Man, Old Woman and Nikki who, in turn, projects p4; containing only, so far, the role-receiving scene. Projections can contain one or more externalized versions of their project-or (as well as details from the project-or's personal circumstances). Projected characters would, being subordinate creations, display no awareness that they are being projected. So p4's version of Nikki unknowingly receives a "projection role" in this projected scene about, ostensibly, receiving a movie role. P4 Nikki (projected by p3 Nikki, who is wearing green) is dressed in black, white (recalling the opening b/w scene) and red (recalling the red-draped Lost Woman at her monitor). This suggests that multiple color-signaled influences from p1, p2 and p3 are all making their way into Nikki's p4 projection. So, in addition to displaying material related to its project-or, the nested projection structure described here also allows for the presence of tokens of influence from any perspective containing the perspective being projected. (As a basic illustration: p4 is contained within p3, which is contained within p2, so p4 cannot possess material that is not at least a potentiality for p2 (even if we grant p4 a limited, compartmentalized autonomy). P4 will therefore be contextualized (influenced) by its necessary compatibility with its container, p2.)

Continuing on in p4 (which will be the predominant perspective for the first half of the film) we next see a preliminary meeting related to the making of Nikki's movie. We meet Nikki's co-star, DEVON, dressed in black like Nikki's husband. The DIRECTOR, with discretion, refers to trouble in the Nikki's life (lost in the p3 Old Woman-mentioned (Hollywood) marketplace?) and to rising above her problems (by connecting with something in the Past that is "behind the marketplace"?; i.e. behind the surface of Hollywood film-making?).

Cut to Devon and Nikki making an appearance on an interview show, in front of an unseen audience. Images of spotlights again recall the lamp reflected on the Lost Woman's monitor; reminding us that we are watching the p4 projection of p3 Nikki, who is projected by the p2 monitor-ing Lost Woman (another unseen audience of this scene; all of these unseen audiences point to the all-encompassing, unseen audience (project-or) located in p1). The interviewer refers to some "shocking revelation" made by Devon. This unspecified "revelation" causes the interviewer to ask Nikki if she will be having an off-screen romance with Devon. Nikki says no. Described as "devilish" (Dev-on/Dev-il?) by the interviewer, Devon then retorts that if the interviewer wants a shock she should look in the mirror. This mirthful snottiness recalls the p3 Old Woman's story of the narcissistic process for bringing evil into the world. All three characters in this scene are dressed in black. They sit in red chairs that rest on top of blue platforms. We are familiar with the growing significances black and red. What about blue? All we have to go on at this point is that the movie p4 Nikki is making is entitled "On High in Blue Tomorrows" and Nikki's on-screen character is named Susan Blue. Apparently, blue is "Nikki's color". It may also worth mentioning that Devon is wearing a glitzy gold blazer over his otherwise black outfit, another Hollywood "surface" that may indicate he will have only a shallow involvement in what lies ahead. Hollywood is referred to as a place where, "stars make dreams and dreams make stars", re-emphasizing that p4 Nikki is a dreamlike projection of p3 project-or/actress (star) Nikki.

Post-interview, Devon changes out of his gold blazer. His arms are extended, mockingly crucifix-like, while an assistant puts a black shirt and "bad boy" black leather jacket on him; dressing him in a somewhat demonic costume. He claims he will not pursue an affair with Nikki, but his assistants talk about her "nice ass" and laugh, unconvinced by his denial. Then they warn him about the Nikki's husband, who is described in sinister terms. So Nikki's husband and the "semi-devilish" Devon are both connected to "dark" qualities (their black attire referencing the ugly behavior of the man in the b/w scene) while, simultaneously, apparently being opposed to each other ("shocking revelation").

The next scene has the two lead actors rehearsing the "...Blue Tomorrows" script. It quickly becomes apparent the screenplay is a tacky adultery romance. (The screenwriter is Lawrence Ashton: L.A., Los Angeles; Hollywood commercial-film "marketplace"). Mention is made of the unfinished set located behind where they are seated; Smithy's house. It is probably not a coincidence that "Alan Smithee" is the pseudonym that film directors, including David Lynch, have attached to projects they don't want to be credited for, due to loss of "creative control". An amusing parallel can be drawn between the behavior of greedy, creativity-sapping producers and, as we will soon see, a "curse"-carrying script-source that will plague the filming of "...Blue Tomorrows", quite probably turning it into yet another "Alan Smithee film".

The reading is interrupted at a point in the script where the Nikki says, "look in the other room..." (after Nikki shed a tear while reading; a sign of uncertainty relative to the boundary between what is scripted and what is non-scripted), by a noise coming from the direction of Smithy's unfinished "house". Devon investigates. He follows the sound of footsteps and hears a door shut. He walks back to Smithy's front door, the only door in the vicinity, but sees that it is just part of a prop facade and cannot physically open. He looks into a front window next to the door, but sees nothing through the silk curtains. Moving to the side of the "house", he looks behind the false front and sees only a small empty space filled with prop supports (i.e. he sees nothing behind the Hollywood surface). Puzzled, he returns to the others.

This strange episode causes the Director (utilizing information skillfully gathered by his cohort FREDDIE) to reluctantly inform the two actors that "...Blue Tomorrows" is the second attempt at filming a script based on a story; "47". The story was a gypsy tale that was said to carry a curse. The first production, filmed in the Baltic, was never completed because the two lead actors were murdered. This "curse" explanation connects to the Old Woman's suggestions about evil and the Past and to p1's troubled b/w Baltic hotel room scene. Freddie, resembling an aged version of Nikki's husband, is dressed in black with a prominent red (Lost Woman) tie. Nikki's husband and the Lost Woman are apparently being related to Freddie's "information" concerning events in the Baltic Past.

Next, we see Nikki at home, dressed in green. Two older people are speaking to her in Polish (continuing the previous scene's Baltic references). She is referred to by the word "half", which recalls the (green-clothed) Old Woman's story about the "half-born" girl, who finds her way to the Past "behind the marketplace". Nikki's husband (speaking for the first time, in a (Baltic?) accent) tells the Poles that Nikki understands more of their language than she lets on (perhaps referencing p3 Nikki's connection to the Old Woman, who also speaks with a Baltic-esque accent). The Baltic Past influence grows within the p4 Hollywood Present.

We then meet the RIVAL WOMAN for the first time, dressed in a white T-shirt. She is being questioned by a detective. She says "some man" has hypnotized her ("moved his hand") and is influencing her to kill someone with a screwdriver. (This is the first direct reference to the Phantom in the p4 perspective, as will be substantiated later.) She doesn't yet know who her victim is, but the man told her she would know when she needed to. The scene ends with the Rival Woman pulling up her T-shirt and removing a blood-soaked bandage to reveal the screwdriver. It is stuck into her own abdomen, adding to the ambiguity of who the "victim" is.

The filming (projection of the making of something that is itself projected) of "...Blue Tomorrows" begins. (Or did it begin in the last scene, with the Rival Woman's story?). The two lead actors play a scene where they discuss having an extramarital affair. Devon (dressed in off-white), in his screen role Billy, is the aggressor. Nikki (also predominantly in white), as Susan Blue, resists, saying an affair would result in "blue (sad?) tomorrows". The color white seems to be coming more into evidence as we move into the filming of "...Blue Tomorrows". We have seen the black clothing of several male figures make apparent reference to the disturbing b/w scene. Could whiteness represent a "whitewashed" facade concealing the same p1-related trouble (white shirt and bandage covering the Rival Woman's wound, white-dressed Devon and Nikki discussing a soap opera-style affair that may prove dangerous)? The Director, after calling "cut" and approving of the take, complains that the "production" (projection) will soon
be moving to a less-pleasant climate (like the Baltic?).

Next, Freddie, in black, sits with the two mostly-white clothed lead actors on a darkened set and makes a series of seemingly disconnected remarks. He says he sees a vast network of possibilities. Then he mentions that he used to raise rabbits, (p3 rabbits' influence). He says he has seen animals successfully think out solutions for "tricky" situations. Is he implying that he knows that Nikki and Devon have started a "tricky" off-screen affair? (We have only seen an affair discussed in the "...Blue Tomorrows" script so far, but this scene is off-script. The p4 projection is beginning to merge the actors' "real lives" with the movie roles derived from "curse"-related "47".) Freddie then complains about a "damn landlord" and about "not being able to carry his own weight". The two actors take the hint and give him some money. But could this implied affair be about more than just the cuckolding of Nikki's husband? Beneath the facade (Nikki/Devon in white) of a stereotypical love triangle, could something more disturbing (husband-resembling Freddie in black) be going on? Could the Phantom (influence from p3 in the form of unseen, unnamed threat) be the "landlord"? Is the "rent money" only meant to keep Freddie from disclosing the actors' affair to Nikki's husband or is it an indication that the Phantom (seeking some sort of "opening") is somehow fostering the Devon/Nikki affair, at the "expense" (in some sense of the word) of Nikki's husband (covertly represented in this scene by cash-strapped Freddie)? Do the words "not carrying his own weight" indicate that Nikki's husband is not as all-knowing and intimidating as he has, to this point, been described? At the same time, Freddie's ability to see "possibilities" and his reference to rabbits (we earlier witnessed the Husband rabbit's inverse relationship with the Phantom; he is absent when the Phantom is present and vice versa) hint that Nikki's husband has multiple, contradictory dimensions (some of which may be related to the rabbit-mentioned upcoming event (another "tricky" situation?)) even if they have not, thus far, manifested themselves in the p4 projection.

Then, as we see make-up applied to Nikki's face, the Director's voice refers to a 90-year-old niece with a foreign accent (referencing the p3 Old Woman) who keeps asking about who will be playing the role of Smithy. The fact that the upcoming p4 scenes will be played out by roles cast (projected) by p3 Nikki (while influenced by the Old Woman) is being underscored as we look at p4 Nikki's cosmetically-altered, role-playing face.

Next, after dinner at Nikki's dark, shadowy home (projected from p3 into p4), Nikki's husband speaks ominous words to Devon, as Nikki silently and secretly looks on. It appears that a suspicious husband is simply trying to intimidate another man into staying away from his wife. But, as he speaks of Nikki not being a free agent and of the bonds of marriage being, if necessary, "enforced for us", even if this requires "dark consequences", it seems that he is actually describing unseen influences (related to "cursed" story "47", source for adultery script "...Blue Tomorrows", which Devon and Nikki seem to be portraying in their "real lives" as well as on film) that are having an impact on each of the three involved in the Devon/Nikki/husband triangle.

Then we see some technical difficulties on the set. The Director has a great deal of trouble getting a light positioned properly. The lamp on the Lost Woman's monitor screen is again recalled, reminding us that we a watching p4, a p3 projection nested within a p2 projection which emerged from a troubled scene (with obscured, shadowy (poorly illuminated) faces) in p1.

Next there is a shot of Devon and Nikki sitting alone in the dark. A door opens and light (Lost Woman) falls only on Nikki, revealing that she is wearing a bright blue robe (Nikki's color), suggesting that she will be the focus of p4 (while in some way resonant with the p2 Lost Woman) and will perhaps put on and take off (like a robe) a number of personas as p4 proceeds through its development (its "blue tomorrows").

Another (filmed) filming scene comes next. Devon (as Billy) tells Nikki (as Susan) not to ruin the relationship they have. They are seated on red furniture. After filming of the scene ends, there are more lighting problems and some technical directions given in what sounds like Swedish. Like Poland, Sweden borders on the Baltic Sea; another hint that the p4 projection is "moving towards" the events in the Baltic Past. Will this move, perhaps related to a Lost Woman-influenced (red, lighting), Baltic-related projection-role (robe) change for Nikki, somehow contribute to the "ruin" of the Nikki-Susan/Devon-Billy relationship?

Between takes (i.e. non-scripted), Devon asks Nikki to dinner (the affair becomes more "real"). In the background, Freddie reminds us of Nikki's husband and of the Phantom's possible influence over the Devon/Nikki affair as he collects more "rent" for the "landlord" from crew members (workers on a film production going through technical difficulties (expense) because of their exposure to "cursed", "47"-related (Phantom-related?) influences).

The filming continues. First, the two leads embrace, surrounded by blackness. Then Nikki (as Susan) tensely tells Devon (as Billy) that she's terrified that her husband has found out about their affair and will kill both of them. The take of the scene falls apart when the Nikki shouts out that her words sound like "dialog from the script"; (it IS, of course, dialog from the script). Dressed in red top and black skirt (an outfit we will see much more of later) she is totally disoriented when the Director yells "cut" and asks, "What the hell is going on?". It seems p4 Nikki is increasingly "living" the "47"-related "...Blue Tomorrows" script.

In the next scene, Devon shows concern over the influence Freddie's story of the "curse" is exerting on Nikki; delivering a common-sense evaluation of "suggestion-prone" behavior. But with Nikki's disturbing connection to the Baltic Past strengthening, Devon's prosaic viewpoint actually indicates that he is oblivious the unseen influences haunting p4.

Cut to Devon and Nikki, surrounded by (p1) blackness, kissing. Then they are in bed, filmed through a deep blue filter; having sex for the first time. After the consummation of their "real"/scripted affair, the action freeze-frames for a few seconds (like a projector problem that reminds us we are looking at a projection), accompanied by a ghostly sound. Then ambiguities quickly start to pile up. There is a shot of a strange-looking lamp (Lost Woman reminder). We see Nikki's husband silently and passively ("not carrying his own weight") viewing the adulterous couple from the doorway. Nikki starts telling Devon something is going to happen tomorrow at the location where she filmed a scene yesterday, a marketplace. Puzzled by her strange and groping words Devon says, "Damn, Sue.", mixing off-script talk about filmmaking with her scripted name. Nikki then mentions strange writing on a door behind the marketplace and events from the Past flooding into her awareness (recalling the Old Woman's story about the "half-born" girl). Devon, as in the previous scene, appears to be out of his depth. Nikki says, "Look at me! Devon, it's me, Nikki!" Is she insisting that Devon help her from slipping into the dark events of the Baltic Past by looking at her as "real-life", non-"...Blue Tomorrows" Nikki in the Hollywood Present? The ghostly sound recurs and suddenly Devon assumes an almost demonic expression, like he's "possessed". Nikki again insists that he look at her, but he only laughs. The camera backs out of the bedroom to show shadows moving across the hallway walls (Nikki's non-intervening husband?) as the scene ends.

So we see p4 Nikki's growing resonance with the Baltic "curse" dramatically underscored. Devon is initially baffled by her behavior, but then strangely transitions into laughter. It is not difficult to interpret Devon as obliviously serving the role of a superficial, Hollywood, "whitewash" impediment; blocking the "view" between Nikki and her husband, while unable to actually SEE Past-drawn Nikki ("Look at me!"). As someone successfully impeded, it makes sense that Nikki would not perceive Devon as an impediment but would instead prefer him over her seemingly sinister, Phantom-like husband. But her growing connection to the Past and the "curse" is beginning to help Nikki (reluctantly, anxiously) realize that her relationship with Devon isn't what it seems to be. Devon's diabolical laughter may point to an unseen influence (Phantom?) manipulating their pairing, an influence into which the clue-less, puppet-like Devon functionally disappears when abruptly "possessed" by it ("putting on" the costume of a demon, as he literally did earlier after the interview show). Nikki's husband is shown as not intervening in the affair, which gives us more reason to think his character has a complex, significantly detached, not-only-menacing role in relation to Nikki.

Next, the Nikki-mentioned scene behind the marketplace visually plays out. Nikki, dressed allusively in green and black, (g/b), comes down an alley behind a marketplace and notices a partially-open sliding door. There is writing on it: AXXONN ("Axxon N.", the title of the radio play; source of the opening b/w p1 hotel room scene) with an arrow trailing off to the right. She goes through the door's opening (following the arrow) and wanders through darkness until there is a bright flash of light (Lost Woman project-or). She is startled to see HERSELF across the sound stage in the earlier rehearsal scene, dressed all in black and reading the line, "look in the other room". (Earlier, p3 Nikki turned to see a double of herself on a sofa, which marked the beginning of the p4 projection. Now p4 Nikki sees a double of her p4 self. What does this signal?) As in the rehearsal scene, Devon rises to investigate the noise behind him. He walks towards the source of the noise; g/b Nikki. She turns and flees back through darkness towards the false front door of Smithy's house. Then she notices her husband, looking at her from across the sound stage, dressed in a green blazer (not in black). Green was prominent in the p3 Nikki/Old Woman scene. The Old Woman (possessing a magical quality; she mentioned magic and knew "too much" about Nikki's career) seems to be a referenced influence here. But also recall that the p2 Lost Woman is seated on a green bedspread as she watches her monitor; another reminder of p2's influence on p3 and p4.

Surrounded by alarming sights and influences, g/b Nikki calls for Billy (anxiously grasping for her compromised (white-washed), recently-"possessed", "...Blue Tomorrows"/"47"-related romantic attachment as her green (magic) and black (p1 Baltic trouble) attire signal the contrasting influences at play in this scene).

He runs towards her, but contact proves impossible (he is an impediment, after all). Nikki takes another look back at her husband ("shocking revelation" of her supposedly sinister husband wearing green) as she nears the front door of Smithy's house. The light (Lost Woman project-or) grows bright. Nikki turns and somehow opens the un-open-able movie-prop front door (magic); passing through the Hollywood facade, literally behind a marketplace, to, perhaps, a deeper connection with the Baltic Past. Recall that the Old Woman earlier made reference to the evocation of evil while exiting a door. Is the opposite action, entering a door, the beginning of some sort of corrective for that evil?

Inside the door is a real house; Smithy's (no longer an "unfinished set", now a "lived in" projection-setting). The walls are orange. (Orange is the color complement of blue/green, the color of the walls in the rabbits' room. Is this a hint that Smithy's house is connected to an outcome for the rabbits' upcoming event; a "complement" to what the rabbits were verbalizing?) The carpet is green (more "magic" ahead?). A prominently displayed clock recalls the Old Woman's words about temporal uncertainty. Linear Time, like other naturalistic laws (spatial (geographic) continuity, continuity of individual identity, physically traceable cause and effect) would be malleable to the subjective agenda of any projection's project-or (for example, Nikki can walk through a door behind the marketplace into a scene from her own past).

Stunned by her new surroundings, Nikki tries to escape back through the prop front door, but it won't open. Devon's back-lit shadow appears in a window; he is looking in, as he did in the earlier portrayal of this same scene. Nikki looks out through the window and again shouts, "Billy!". But Devon is unable to see ("look at me") or hear her and soon vanishes (failing to penetrate the Hollywood surface that Nikki, drawn by her "...Blue Tomorrows" connection to the "47"-related Baltic Past events, has (reluctantly, anxiously) passed through). Through the silk curtains we see a brief image of the empty, darkened movie set just left behind by Nikki. Then the set is startlingly replaced by a view of a sunny, "real" front yard. This appears to mark the completion of a transition from one p4 projection-setting to another. Nikki again tries the front door and is now able to pass through it into what appears to be the yard of a working-class home; a plausible example of the type of home commonly found in the sprawl east of Los Angeles (an area known as the Inland Empire).

Nikki goes back inside. Smithy's house is noticeably more multi-colored (resonant with color-signaled influences from various perspectives) than Nikki's dark and shadowy mansion. Walking through the living room and down a green hallway she reaches the bedroom. The bedspread is green, like the Lost Woman's. The strange lamp (Lost Woman project-or) on the dresser is the same one shown in the blue-filtered scene, which presaged this transition. Nikki's husband appears. He removes his green jacket and gets into the bed, assuming his new Smithy persona (after playing a seemingly facilitative role in bringing Nikki to this new setting). The orange and green bedside lamps are similar to the one next to the sofa in the rabbit's room, again relating Smithy's house to the upcoming event. Nikki walks into another room and sees another lamp. In its red glow appears a brief, recalled image of Devon. As the lamp brightens and violently flickers, his image disappears; the p2 Lost Woman (red, lamps) has apparently, at this point, influenced a downgrading of the significance of Devon's role.

There will be sounds of passing locomotives outside Smithy's house, paralleling the transportation/transition-related boat horn sounds outside of the rabbits' room (p3 influence). The house also comes "furnished" with a group of BAD GIRLS. The two most prominent Bad Girls will serve as Nikki's guides through several of her upcoming experiences. One of the prominent Bad Girls says to the Nikki, "Tell us if you've known us before." Then all the Bad Girls talk (as light (Lost Woman influence) plays over their faces), in shameless sexual terms, about an unnamed man they all seem to have been involved with (Phantom-controlled Devon?). What do they and "Good Girl" Nikki have in common? Are the Bad Girls surrogates for a so-far-unseen aggressive side of Nikki? One of the prominent Bad Girls says, "Strange, what love does." Then Nikki is told (with locomotive sounds on the soundtrack) that in the Future, in a dreamlike state, she will meet "someone familiar". Nikki covers her eyes. When she uncovers them she is standing in a snow-covered, worn-looking street with the two prominent Bad Girls. The sound track repeats, "Strange, what love does." One of the Bad Girls says, "This is the street." The other asks, "Do you want to see?" The Baltic locale where, according to Freddie's "information", the initial filming of "47" was attempted has somehow entered the p4 projection. That film production was halted by a double murder (manifesting the "curse", perhaps as a result of "what love does"). Dressed in multi-colored clothing (underscoring her growing resonance with color-signaled influences from other perspectives), p4 Nikki has become a new persona (no wonder there were two Nikkis in the transitional scene behind the marketplace) more capable of connecting to the "curse" in the Baltic Past; Nikki-as-Mrs.-Smithy.

Nikki closes her eyes. Cut to the film's initial image; the p1 b/w scratchy phonograph. Then we briefly see the p2 Lost Woman at her monitor, followed by a shot of a differently attired Nikki (in a plain dress with a collar, something p3 Nikki would wear), who opens her eyes. An obscured p1 b/w face gradually resolves into the Lost Woman's face. P3 Nikki appears in b/w partial dissolve against the phonograph as the b/w-ized Lost Woman directly addresses her. (It appears that the boundaries and information restrictions characteristic of the nested perspective structure are being loosened (through all-perspective-encompassing, b/w signaled p1 intervention; temporarily setting aside p4 as the film's focus), coalescing the first three nested levels in order to more directly connect (open-eyed) p3 Nikki to p1, p2 and, presumably, the parts of p3 not directly linked to her or the Old Woman (after previously experiencing only unseen, cryptic influence from the rabbits and the Phantom).) The b/w Lost Woman says that if Nikki "wants to SEE" (recalling the Bad Girls' recent words), she needs to put on the watch (subjective temporality) and then burn a hole through silk with a cigarette and look through the hole. Silk made a recent appearance. Smithy's Inland Empire front yard first appeared (after lights and (green) magic) through a gap in the silk curtains in Smithy's living room, replacing the peering Devon and the "...Blue Tomorrows" film set and marking a major transition in p4, which brought Nikki into contact with the Bad Girls who, in turn, delivered her (instantaneously, with eyes covered) to the "curse"-(Phantom?)-related Baltic ("this is the street..."); an apparent foretaste of the type of "seeing" now being described. This suggests that "seeing" (p3 learning-to" see" Nikki will now be able to project p4 Nikki (whose eyes are currently shut) as a "seer") means: in contact with what the physical eyes (limitations of one's perspective) cannot see; i.e. having access to other-perspective material, through a hole in the "silk" projection "screen" (subverting, under controlled conditions, the restrictive nested structure by following instructions traceable to all-encompassing p1).

Her "seeing" lesson over, p3 Nikki (no longer in b/w) looks up at p4 Nikki, who is looking down at her with re-opened eyes. The p3 and p4 POVs are exchanged several times; a literal visual equivalent of p3 Nikki's projection of (reflection of herself) p4 Nikki as the film returns to p3-projected p4 and the concerns of p4 Nikki (with the nested structure's boundaries and restrictions reinstated).

Then (with the assistance of the two prominent Bad Girls), Nikki looks through silk curtains at a view of a dark, snowy, Baltic-looking street while remaining inside Smithy's "Inland Empire" house. This is a p4 "dry-run" version of the "seeing" just described (projected by p3 Nikki after her "seeing lesson"), confirming that p4 Nikki is now able to "see".

In the next scene, filmed through a blue filter, Nikki is in bed with her husband (as Smithy). Nikki's earlier "blue" scene with Devon is recalled. That scene emphasized her growing awareness of Devon as a relationship-impediment. Now, settled post-transition into this Smithy-life, will Nikki and her multidimensional husband still have an impeded relationship, even without the presence of Devon?

Cut to Nikki, dressed in black and white (uncharacteristic attire for Nikki-as-Mrs.-Smithy), cooking breakfast. She kneels to the floor in pain. Then we see her husband dressed in green and lurking in the house's green hallway. A full explanation of this scene will be discussed later when we have acquired more information about the ultimate significance of the p4 roles played by Nikki and her husband.

Then we see Nikki follow the "seeing" instructions. She puts on the watch (its hands turn wildly; subjective projection temporality) and burns a circular hole through the silk. (Which recalls the letter/symbol "O" scribbled with the other AXX-O-NN letters/symbols above the door behind the marketplace). Looking through the hole, she discovers already-known characters from multiple perspectives (though most of them are not known by non-"seeing" p4 Nikki) embodying new self-versions in the now-accessible Baltic ("curse"-related, p1-related) Past, "flooding" into the "seen". A Baltic Phantom and Baltic Lost Woman are arguing. The Lost Woman seems to have made some sort of quid pro quo offer to the Phantom. He is enraged by her suggestion, accusing her of slyness. Cut to a rather melodramatic scene between a (shown-only-from-behind) Baltic Rival Woman and Nikki's Baltic-ized husband ("seer" Nikki is, in some ways, personalizing the "seen"). The Rival Woman says she can never give the Baltic husband a child and, strangely, that she is not who he thinks she is. Then she refers to HER rival for his affection (who?). The Baltic husband walks out. Cut to the Phantom, who has stopped arguing and is now beating the Lost Woman (as light flashes over them). Then cut to the husband, who is standing in a dark Baltic street. A passerby asks him the time and he says 9:45, the time mentioned by the Old Woman when she spoke of temporal uncertainty (subjective projected temporality).

Cut, briefly, to the still-weeping p2 Lost Woman. It can reasonably be concluded that she is being "seen" by p4 Nikki because she is watching Nikki's Baltic-ized husband (a Nikki-personalized character that Nikki was just "seeing") on her monitor, rather than projecting p3 onto it.

Next we see the rabbit room filled with glowing light, which is caused by a burning hole near the top of the visual frame (reminding us that p4 Nikki is "seeing" the rabbit room (a part of p3 she was not directly aware of (but was influenced by) before "seeing") through a hole burned in silk). The Nikki rabbit sits alone on the couch. The Lost Woman rabbit enters, carrying, characteristically, lights. She visually fades in and out (referencing the periodic emphasis on lamps/lights, i.e. the lamp reflected on the Lost Woman's monitor, where the project-or of p4 is projected: is this a hint that the "seen" is bringing a nascent awareness of the phenomenon of projection to a "seeing" projected character (p4 Nikki)?). As the glowing room fades to normal lighting, the Husband rabbit visually fades in and out.

Next (all of this still being "seen" by p4 Nikki), the Husband rabbit is seated at a desk, somewhere outside of the rabbit room. Was he shown as fading out of the rabbit room in the previous scene so he could be placed here? Cut to a shot of the Lost Woman, "seen" away from her monitor and now wearing her red dress. She leads a red and black (r/b)-dressed Nikki (who is being "seen" by p4 Nikki, personalizing what she "sees") to the base of a long staircase. At the top of the staircase is a room with the same desk where we just saw the Husband rabbit seated. Now behind it is a silent man with crooked eyeglasses (is he connected to the upcoming event through the Husband rabbit?). Prominently shown on the wall behind him is the letter "A", the first letter/symbol of A-XXONN, which we saw scribbled on the door in the alley behind the marketplace.

As "seen" r/b Nikki speaks to this LISTENER (listed in the credits as "Doctor") she exhibits qualities markedly different from anything we have seen from the more passive p4 Nikki. R/b Nikki is an abused-(prototypically (p1) troubled)-but-not-defeated woman (wounds on neck and jaw, with a screwdriver in her hand), dressed in two colors we have repeatedly seen. She mentions a man who was planning something with her in mind (Phantom?) and then tells a story about how she gouged out the eye of a man who tried to rape her. The Listener silently follows her words. There is no naïveté, a far less privileged personal history and a lot of Bad Girl in this "seen" Nikki. P4 Nikki appeared in this red and black outfit during a "...Blue Tomorrows" filming scene where she became disoriented, almost disembodied, over her growing connection to, in essence, the "curse" of "47". Then she passed through Smithy's door and began to "see", among others, r/b Nikki (the Bad Girls said Nikki would meet "someone familiar"). Perhaps p4 Nikki will now be better able to tolerate and assimilate the difficult lessons related to the "curse", through "seeing" the cursed-like but survived experiences of "familiar" r/b Nikki.

Cut to p4 Nikki back in Smithy's house. We see silk with the hole burned in it. She has stopped "seeing" through it. The Bad Girls are back. They briefly give her sympathy for the breakup of a romance (presumably referring to Devon). Nikki listens to them passively. One imagines that "seen" r/b Nikki would not stay quiet in such a situation. She would probably be happy to detail the flaws of any former lover. They tell Nikki that it is time to move on, time to put "tits and ass" to good use, as the Bad Girls plan to do that very evening. They seem more empowered (like r/b Nikki) than exploited. One of the prominent Bad Girls displays her breasts. They are described as "sweet". The transition-related sounds of the locomotive in the background are then underscored as the Bad Girls dance, in flashing light (Lost Woman project-or), to the song "Locomotion". They suddenly disappear, re-emphasizing that it is "time to move on".

Next there is a Smithy/Mrs. Smithy dinner scene. In the earlier, breakfast-cooking scene Nikki knelt in pain. Now she reveals why, telling her husband that she is pregnant. (Earlier the Rival Woman (in the "seen" Baltic) mentioned the impossibility of conception. Is a theme related to pregnancy developing; pregnancy considered in a more metaphorical, general (multi-referenced) sense; i.e. feminine creative potential?) He does not receive the news well. The relationship between these Smithy versions of Nikki and her husband is clearly impeded even after Devon has begun to fade in significance. Has the Phantom (unseen influence; "landlord") also "possessed" Nikki's husband (i.e. present at the "expense" of the absented husband), even though Nikki's husband also seems to be influenced by an anti-Phantom dimension (Husband rabbit; present when the Phantom is absent)? This would explain how Devon and Nikki's husband can be similar, but can also be opposed. Nikki's husband, Devon and the Husband rabbit are signaled as influenced by the p1 "dark behavior" through their black attire, but they can apparently be reactive-against as well as examples-of that behavior ("shocking revelation"). Where is this leading?

Then we see Nikki attempt to telephone Devon, (not yet "moving on"). The call rings, then makes a second connection and rings (sounding more distant) in the rabbits' room (p4 contacting p3). The Husband rabbit answers. The unseen audience laughs at Nikki's cries for "Billy" into the oversized ears of a humanized rabbit related to her husband. Nikki is using a red (Lost Woman influence) telephone. A unique (discussed later) non-"seen", perspective-crossing communication (requiring a double connection) between Nikki and an apparently anti-Phantom persona of Nikki's husband deflects her attachment to Phantom-controlled, "left behind" Devon.

Then we "see", through a hole in silk, r/b Nikki again talking to the Listener. She tells him about how once a man attacked her with a crowbar because he thought she was cheating. The Listener asks if she was, in fact, being unfaithful (indirectly referencing Nikki's affair with Devon). She admits she was "screwing a guy for drinks"; displaying the qualities of a very bad Girl. Then she speaks of a town with poisonous chemicals in the air (Hollywood?), where a little girl (lost in the marketplace in the Old Woman's story?) had a vision of the "end of the world" (Phantom's malignant schemes; one in the Baltic Past and another related to the hypnotizing of the Rival Woman?).

Abruptly, we are in the yard outside Smithy's house. Nikki asks two women who resemble (but are not) the prominent Bad Girls to tell her if they have known her before, the same question the Bad Girls earlier asked her. They laugh at her and say, noncommittally, that they "will do that". This questioner role reversal is matched by another reversal: the Nikki being "seen" is wearing a multi-colored dress; dressed like assumed "seer" Nikki-as-Mrs. Smithy. What has happened to the expected r/b attire?

Then spilled ketchup on Nikki's husband's white T-shirt (reminding us of the Rival Woman's white T-shirt and the bloody screwdriver) fades into a brief shot of the Baltic Lost Woman, surrounded by lights (candles), praying for her heart to be released from "this wicked dream". Her prayer is not answered; we are returned to the disturbing Baltic Past events. The Baltic Lost Woman climbs up a staircase. On the wall at the top of the stairs we see an arrow (like the one scrawled next to the letters/symbols "AXXONN" on the door behind the marketplace) pointing down, seemingly an indication that she is going in the "wrong direction". (Behind the marketplace, Nikki FOLLOWED the arrow; suggesting that her relation to the Lost Woman includes a corrective dimension.) The Lost Woman walks towards an entrance, holding the soon-to-be-bloody screwdriver. We then hear a scream, followed by a shot of the Lost Woman outside the door, alone on her knees and in a state of shock (does she even know what she's done?). Cut to the image of the standing Baltic Rival Woman (still not yet "seen" from the front) repeated from the earlier-discussed scene with Nikki's Baltic-ized husband. The faces of the two prominent Bad Girls (again acting as guides; this time in the p4 Nikki-personalized "seen") move onto-screen in close-up and ask, "Who is she?". Cut to the answer visually presented (telling us who she is AND who was killed): the Rival Woman is shown lifeless on the floor, a stabbing victim of the Lost Woman. So we have now seen two different versions of the Rival Woman stabbed by the screwdriver. But we have also heard her talk of stabbing somebody else with it.

Then the Baltic Lost Woman (displaying no emotional signs that she has recently committed a murder) and the Baltic Phantom meet on a street. They seem strange to each other. The Phantom says he hardly recognizes her when they are not in their "home". The Lost Woman tells the Phantom that he looks upset. Recalling what the p4 Rival Woman said to the detective (about being hypnotically prepared for committing a murder, presumably by the Phantom) we can perhaps conclude that the mode of relationship for the "seen" Lost Woman and Phantom involves the Lost Woman rendered somewhat insensate by the mesmerizing Phantom. The Phantom would be "upset", unable to manipulate a unfamiliarly independent Lost Woman, if they were not in their "home", with her under his spell. (All of this resonates strongly with the p1 opening scene of the film; the disoriented behavior of the facially obscured woman and the domineering callousness of the man, in the room ("home") to which he had the "key".) The Phantom regains the upper hand by mentioning that a murder has just occurred nearby and that the Lost Woman "knows" the victim. We then "see" that it is Nikki's Baltic-ized husband who has been stabbed to death.

Using the preceding information, a "plot summary" of the "seen" Baltic Past events (Nikki-personalized version of the "curse", using material available from all perspectives) can now be attempted. Say that Nikki's husband and the Lost Woman are a married couple (implying a considerable resonance between Nikki and the Lost Woman). Nikki's husband and the Rival Woman are the leads in the first film production based on the story "47" (the Director said earlier that the two Baltic leads were murdered). Probably due to jealousy over her husband's off-screen infidelity with the Rival Woman (both actors succumbing, like Nikki and Devon, to the influence of the "cursed" script-source "47" (not who they seemed to be; absent when the Phantom is present)) the Lost Woman strategically submitted to the Phantom's manipulative powers (gave him an opening), naively hoping those powers could be used to bring her husband back to her (at a tolerable "price"). If she told the Phantom she would do what the Phantom wanted (indirectly referencing the sexual bartering in the opening b/w scene) in return for (quid pro quo) help getting her husband back ("strange what love does"), the Phantom's earlier seen rage, at not being preferred to the Lost Woman's husband, would be explained (assuming a controlling, narcissistic-personality-type possessiveness of the Lost Woman on the part of the Phantom). Under the scheming Phantom's spell, the Baltic Lost Woman DID (obliviously) get rid of her rival (but with a (murderous) action that comes with (Old Woman-mentioned) "consequences"), but also (obliviously) got rid of the Phantom's rival, her husband (an unintended, intolerable "price"). That she was a hypnotized killer explains both her displayed disassociation from Rival Woman's murder and her lack of awareness that her husband had been killed when she spoke to the Phantom (who DID know of the killing). The two murders solved none of her problems (a "wicked dream" from which there is no release), but did avail the Phantom of an "opening" to the now husbandless and (partially) criminally culpable (i.e. Phantom-ized) Baltic Lost Woman. So the "curse" that has been related to the story "47" can be considered as equivalent to the sum of the manipulative conduct of the Baltic Phantom and the openness to malignant influence on the part of the "seen" versions of Nikki's husband, the Lost Woman and the Rival Woman.

We have now viewed two related romantic triangles on two film sets. In the "seen" Baltic, the Lost Woman's husband (Nikki's Baltic-ized Hollywood husband) has an affair with the Rival Woman, (both seemingly influenced by the Phantom) and the spellbound Lost Woman murders them. In Hollywood, "47"-influenced Nikki cheats on her husband with the Phantom-puppet Devon and the Rival Woman has been hypnotized by the Phantom to commit murder (to kill Lost Woman-resonant Nikki?). There seems to be some type of retribution scheme taking shape through the role reversals that distinguish these two related affairs.

Next there is a shot of the Lost Woman, presumably watching the just-"seen" Baltic events on her monitor, reminding us that everything we are viewing (including this "monitoring" Lost Woman) is being "seen" by p4 Nikki (the Lost Woman is "seen" watching what Nikki "sees" rather than what the non-"seen" Lost Woman would "monitor" (project); p3).

Returning to Smithy's yard, the Baltic CARNIES make an appearance (the "seen" Baltic contacting a "seen" version of Inland Empire California). One is wearing a naval officer's hat, reminding us of the boat horns heard in the rabbits' room. Another, dressed in black (p1), says vaguely that the "situation is becoming dangerous". One of the seated carnies holds some heavy rope, suggesting bondage. There is a fuss over possession of a hammer (instead of a screwdriver). A red star is twirled. (Later we will see blood cover a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but not yet.) A second pair of women who are not the two prominent Bad Girls walk aimlessly across the screen. To previous talk of paper towels is added mention of toilet paper (sheet material distractingly covered with false blood (ketchup) and feces, unlike the hole in a sheet of silk, through which "curse"-related issues have been clearly "seen"). It seems that this "seen" portrayal of multi-color-clothed Nikki, surrounded by (in the bondage of) impaired, distorted connections to previously established circumstances and influences, expresses the notion that p4 Nikki-as-Mrs. Smithy represents a no-longer-sufficiently-capable persona (reminiscent of Hollywood Nikki's multiple scenes of disorientation shortly before she transitioned into the role of Smithy's wife). Is it coming time for transition (naval hat; boat horns) into a new Nikki persona who can handle the projection's growing demands (situation becoming dangerous), a persona possessing some of r/b Nikki's no-nonsense qualities?

Then Nikki's husband tells her he is going to work with the carnies in the Baltic region, caring for the circus animals. He says he has a way with animals. This recalls with Freddie's words about animals thinking their way out of tricky situations. Is Nikki's husband going to be assisting with a "tricky situation" when he gets to the Baltic?

Cut to r/b Nikki telling the Listener about her husband (this personalized, "seen", p1-influenced version of p4 Nikki talks (quasi-paradigmatically) about other men but necessarily "shares" p4 Nikki's husband) leaving her to work with the carnies in the Baltic. Where the "seen" version of Nikki-as-Mrs.-Smithy took this news rather passively, r/b Nikki does not mince words about the lowlife carnies or the (apparent) stupidity of her husband's decision to join them. (Cynical, confrontational r/b Nikki doesn't realize that this move to the Baltic might be a positive development. Though she manifests useful toughness and assertiveness, she has her limitations. Her recklessness, after all, repeatedly makes her a "woman in trouble".) Then there is an image of a twirling female trapeze artist, the first of a series of dancing, twirling female images that we will be seeing. If the image is about women becoming free and expressing themselves, the process begins here, in the "seen" room (which displays the alphabet's (language's) first letter; "A", on the wall) with r/b Nikki using uninhibited language to express unpleasant but important issues with unadorned clarity.

She then tells of her husband coming into personal contact with the Phantom in the Baltic traveling circus. ("Seen" r/b Nikki knows a lot more about the Phantom than non-"seeing" p4 Nikki, who was only in contact with his disturbing indirect influence.) She says the Phantom could create problems for the carnies and then disappear to avoid any (Old Woman mentioned) consequences. She gives another example of his malignant behavior; a one-legged woman killed three children in the first grade, impliedly while under the Phantom's spell.

Cut to the Bad Girls in Smithy's living room. They seem to be waiting for something to happen, as a locomotive can be heard outside. Nikki is shown slowly taking her eyes away from the hole in silk. The camera lingers over her retreat from "seeing". Next, she leaves Smithy's house. Nikki is dressed in red and black rather than the Mrs. Smithy multi-colors. "Seen" r/b Nikki has exerted a visible influence on "seer" p4 Nikki; i.e. red and black dressed Nikki was presumably the "seer" of the events in Smithy's yard, which explains why Nikki-as-Mrs.-Smithy was "seen" and negatively evaluated. This newly re-attired red and black p4 Nikki is (projected as) an emerging persona in the process of distinguishing herself from and leaving behind Nikki-as-Mrs.-Smithy.

Nikki travels to a large home and lets herself in with a key. (The faceless woman had given away the hotel room key to the man in the b/w scene.) Inside, surprisingly, is nearly-forgotten Devon, dressed in white and playing the role of Billy Side in "...Blue Tomorrows". With him is his on-script family (he does not have an off-script family). The Rival Woman is his wife. In the credits she is designated "Doris Side". Though the p4 projection seems to be regressing to the earlier stage of the filming of "...Blue Tomorrows", the return is only partial; we see none of the shots of cameras or crew that we saw earlier and the dialog is full of double meanings. The Rival Woman/(Doris Side) calls red and black dressed p4 Nikki by the name Susan and asks her why she is there. What IS Nikki doing there, since she has, through her transition and connection to the Baltic Past, evolved beyond the Hollywood Nikki persona who played the character Susan? Nikki says that she thought the Rival Woman/(Doris Side) "was gone". Hollywood Nikki, playing the role of Susan, would think the Rival Woman/(Doris Side) was gone because Devon, playing the role Billy, earlier said his wife was away with their children (in an already filmed "...Blue Tomorrows" scene). But the now-more-informed Nikki would think the Rival Woman was "gone" because she recently "saw" the dead Baltic Rival Woman. It seems we have two Nikki personas simultaneously occupying one body.

Understandably disoriented as she partially falls back into an earlier-abandoned persona, Nikki says that something is "bad wrong". She asks Devon if he has forgotten "how it was" between them. He tells her to go away, emphatically calling her "Sue". Nikki tells "Billy" she "loves" him. (Both are using their "47"influenced "...Blue Tomorrows" names.) Having "heard enough", the Rival Woman/(Doris Side) slaps Nikki (being the wife here, the Rival Woman's rival is Nikki; a notion that was mentioned by the "seen" Baltic Rival Woman in her first scene with Nikki's Baltic-ized husband). The slap seems to lift Nikki out of the vestige of her Hollywood persona. She says that "something more" is going on; red and black dressed p4 Nikki finally sees "how it was": her rival position in this "47"-influenced, staged/not-staged (double meanings) love triangle and her "tricky" position in the "47" sourced, "Blue Tomorrows"-influenced Devon/Nikki/husband triangle combine to reveal the trademark "cursed" influence of the (recently" seen" as Baltic-ized) Phantom.

The Phantom's influence is confirmed next as we see that the words about "something more" have a big impact on the Rival Woman/(Doris Side), who recalls images involving multiple Rival Woman personas: dressed in a white T-shirt while talking to the p3 detective, dressed in black and murdered in the "seen" Baltic (where she mentioned a rival seen (not "seen") here in p4) and, in some uncertain location, being hypnotized by the Phantom (who is MOVING HIS HAND; confirming that he was the hypnotizer she described earlier to the detective). How can these different personas and different perspectives be juxtaposed when there is no indication that they are being "seen" by p4 Nikki? This new NON-"seen" dissolving of the nested perspective boundaries can be interpreted as foreshadowed by p4 Nikki's call on the red telephone, which was able to reach (through a boundary-overriding double connection) the non-"seen" p3 Husband rabbit and by the multiple examples of "seeing" (a temporary suspension of the nested structure which "flooded" non-p4 material into p4, apparently contributing to a compromise of p4's boundaries). Perhaps Nikki's semi-return to pre-transition Hollywood (and Nikki's Hollywood persona) is suggesting the turning point in a cyclical process involving an initial structured proliferation and subsequent boundary-eliminated coalescing of perspectives. If p1, p2, p3, p4, earlier (pre-transition) versions of p4 and the "seen" have started a process of merging with each other, is it becoming less the case that we are primarily focused on the p4 projection (characterized by a sense of uneasiness caused by unseen influences hidden behind nested structure boundaries) of an individual sub-subjectivity (p3 Nikki) and gradually more the case that we are viewing a consolidation of all the perspectives, projected directly from their all-encompassing, unseen p1 source (which grows more committed, complex and articulated by assimilating (assuming project-or's responsibility for) what was originally projected or "seen" by the nested, subordinate project-ors)? What new characteristic sense will this create? And who is the p1 metaproject-or?

With her lingering, misguided attachment to Devon resolved, another transition seems inevitable for p4 Nikki. Devon, on the other hand, has no further role to play (Billy SIDE cannot pass to the "other side" (through Smithy's door) where there is potentially freeing knowledge of the "curse"; he is totally subject to the Phantom's influence). Red and black-clothed "seer" Nikki (not the trouble-causing p1 man) had the KEY ("something more") to Devon's house and let herself in; she found (exposed) Devon where he "lived" (as a Phantom-controlled impediment in "whitewashed" romantic disguise) rendering him thereafter useless to the Phantom's agenda.

Next we see the Nikki's husband in the Baltic Present, where he has gone to work with the carnies. He is escorted to a rural area by the Boss Man, who merges into the consolidating, multi-p perspective from his original appearance in p3. (Nikki's husband appears in the Baltic Present, with no suggestion that he is being "seen", after he was "seen" telling "seen" Nikki-as-Mrs.-Smithy that he was going there. This, along with the completion of the "cursed" Baltic events storyline and Nikki's recent lingering (parting) look at the hole in silk add substantiation to the notion that the compartmentalization of the "seen" is over; it is merging with the other perspectives.) They stop at a shack where Nikki's husband has a conversation with one of the carnies (who was "seen" wearing a sailor's hat (recalling the rabbit room's boat horn (transportation; transition)) in Smithy's yard). Nikki's husband asks him where the Phantom has gone. The carnie says the Phantom mentioned the Inland Empire (gone there to find the "opening" he mentioned to the Boss Man?, to give hypnotic "directions" to the Rival Woman?). Then he tells Nikki's husband, "You're nothing. You've done nothing." Until this move to the present-day Baltic, Nikki's husband HAD "done nothing" more than be a Phantom-victim or Phantom-surrogate. But the fact that he is trying to track down the Phantom seems to indicate that his period of "doing nothing" is over (he IS, after all, present and the Phantom IS absent). The scene ends by dissolving into a huge painted clown's face which, in turn, dissolves into a shot of Nikki as we have not seen her before; dressed all in black and with a demonic smile/grimace on her face. This brightly lit (light; Lost Woman project-or) face moves right into the camera lens. A sinister linkage (from this face through the clown face (Baltic carnie realm) to the Phantom) seems difficult to deny: i.e. Nikki's involvement with Devon parallels the Baltic Lost Woman's calculated cooperation with the Baltic Phantom. And there is perhaps also the suggestion of subjective (consolidating-perspective) "geographic" movement of the Phantom (through indications from a transportation/transition-related carnie) from the Baltic Present to Nikki's Inland Empire in California.

We next see p4 Nikki, clearly stunned by her awareness of her grotesque double without any evidence of her physically seeing or "seeing" it, an indication that Nikki and this quasi-demonic self can only be making contact in an encompassing perspective that is merging them together.

Next, a neighbor woman who is physically similar to the Rival Woman appears at Smithy's house and TWICE tells Nikki that there is a debt that needs to be paid. (Is this related to the TWO "seen" murders (one of the victims was the Baltic Rival Woman)?) Then she mentions a neighbor named Krimp. The woman has a wounded hand; recalling the wounds received by multiple Rival Woman personas. And she wears a watch; recalling the role a watch played in the description of "seeing".

Then we see Nikki recalling her meeting with Krimp to the Listener (with no indication that the (merging) Listener is being "seen" through a hole in silk). Cut to the scene recalled, with Nikki walking into a neighbor's yard. Krimp turns out to be the Phantom, newly arrived in the Inland Empire. Red and black dressed p4 Nikki and the not-previously-seen-in-p4-originating-in-p3 Phantom make contact (merging perspectives). Krimp/Phantom, bizarrely, has a red light bulb in his mouth. Briefly, the flickering red lamp that Nikki saw shortly after her arrival at Smithy's house is visually recalled. Krimp stands passive as Nikki grabs a (merging) screwdriver (already in the possession of the p4 Rival Woman and "seen" with r/b Nikki and the Baltic Lost Woman) lying nearby. She walks off. The Phantom's plan (related to his move to the Inland Empire, the hypnotizing of the Rival Woman and his spoken desire for an opening) is apparently being obstructed (choked) by an influence related to the not-yet-merging p2 Lost Woman (red light) as reflected in the actions of Lost Woman-resonant Nikki.

We next move to the present-day Baltic with the Boss Man of the carnies leading Nikki's husband into a room where some associates of the Boss Man are seated at a table. The Baltic Lost Woman, seated among them, fades in and out of visual presence. She says she "doesn't know where she is". There is a small red light behind the table. She has asked for Nikki's husband and mentioned the Phantom, whom Nikki's husband is said to "work for" (at his own "expense"; i.e. he has, until now, been absent while the Phantom was present). Nikki's husband can vaguely hear her but can not SEE her. (This suggests that the barely-discernible Baltic Lost Woman is an isolated dimension of the p2 Lost Woman. The small red lamp in the background (distance) and the spoken words, "It WAS red..." (Past; time separation) perhaps emphasize the degree to which this (originally "seen") Baltic dimension is "lost" in relation to the (red-signaled) Lost Woman.) What is the relationship between Nikki's husband and the Lost Woman? He was clearly Nikki's husband at the beginning of p4. But consider the Husband rabbit's ambiguous inter-relationship with the Nikki and Lost Woman rabbits in their first scene. And he was also the Baltic Lost Woman's husband (and r/b Nikki's) when "seen". Until the evolving, merging-p's perspective sorts out this ambiguity he will simply be called "the Husband". He is handed a gun. There is metaphorical talk of leading a horse to a well (recalling the notion that the Husband's move to the Baltic, by means of his "having a way with (horse, rabbits) animals", implied his involvement in a "tricky" (opposing his "employer", the Phantom) situation). It seems inevitable that there is going to be a (gun) confrontation involving the human counterparts (Nikki, Lost Woman and Husband) of the rabbit triad and the Phantom (a merging of p3 and p4). Is this confrontation the upcoming event? The Husband is told to hurry because it is after midnight, recalling the Old Woman's words about Time. As he leaves he passes a picture of two hands holding a candle. Surrounded by candles, the Baltic Lost Woman earlier asked for release from her "wicked dream". Will her release somehow be gun-related?

The men and the furniture are rearranged and (while a boat horn sounds) transition into the identically-positioned rabbits in the rabbit room: the rabbits are being connected to the Boss Man (who was already indirectly related to the rabbits in his early p3 scene with the Phantom (where he offered the Phantom no help) through that scene's connection with the Husband rabbit) and his associates (who helped initiate a gun-involved strategy for the rabbit-related upcoming event). The Lost Woman rabbit says, "It was red..." and the Husband rabbit says, "Where was I?"; both referencing the previous scene. The Nikki rabbit says "This isn't the way it was...", perhaps pointing to changes brought about by the merging of perspectives and then "One day I am going to find out...", evoking the upcoming event. The room goes dark as the Husband rabbit stands and stares at the Nikki rabbit (as he did in the first rabbit scene after mentioning that he had a "secret"); seeming to urge a sense of direction upon her (horse to a well).

The sound of the "Axxon N."-playing phonograph then mentions the man in the green coat (the Husband's attire during Nikki's transition to Smithy's house) and "something to do with the telling of Time" (telling (projection) of events from the consolidating p1 (phonograph signaled) viewpoint as it is in the process of assimilating the various perspectives' Pasts and Presents).

Cut to Smithy's house and transition. Amid lightning flashes we see Nikki dressed in black and blue, then dressed in a white robe, dressed in black and blue again and dressed once more in white. She screams amidst wild flashes of light (Lost Woman project-or) which blend into and then become the lights on a Los Angeles street. (She leaves behind Smithy's Inland Empire house (where new connections expanded her personal "inland empire") and returns (cyclically) to the locale where she was involved in a "risky" love triangle with Devon and the Husband (both associated with the color BLACK) and where she played ("47"-influenced) Susan BLUE in her "real life" as well as in "...Blue Tomorrows", a film in which the characters often wore (notion of "romantic whitewash") WHITE.

On the Los Angeles street we see the Bad Girls, assuming the roles of whores for their previously mentioned "wild night". They greet a disheveled-looking Nikki with a sarcastic "hello". Is THIS post-transition Nikki? A blue light flickers on and off above her head, resembling the ticking of a clock. She says to herself, "I'm a whore." Then she mockingly speaks the words used by the facially-obscured woman in the film's first b/w scene ("Where am I? I'm afraid."), the scene where a woman in trouble is involved in a whore-like sexual transaction.

Cut to ANOTHER Nikki wandering down the street, carrying the earlier-mentioned screwdriver. She sees the p1-related letters/symbols AXXONN written above a door, recalling the radio play and the same writing seen earlier on the door in the alley behind the marketplace. The arrow to the right of the scrawling leads to a pay telephone. She turns and sees the Nikki-whore across the street, smiling back mockingly (just as Nikki saw doubles of herself close to the times of earlier transitions; so THIS screwdriver-carrying (red and black dressed, action-capable non-victim) Nikki is the post-transition Nikki). A close-up reveals the Nikki-whore's smile as similar to the grotesque Nikki facial expression that earlier emerged from the clown's face. Nikki is initially shocked by her whore-double, but then carefully observes it (no longer repressing awareness of this dimension of herself, which has just been verbally related to the feminine trouble portrayed in the opening b/w scene).

Next she notices that the Rival Woman is pursuing her. Nikki flees (not going through the AXXONN-marked door) and asks the Bad Girls for help, but they are unwilling to do anything for her. One of them is trying to make a collect phone call. Focus then shifts onto the two prominent Bad Girls, who are standing on the curb, laughing. Cut to them standing by a snow-covered Baltic street. The two are suddenly in Baltic attire (a merging of p4 and the "seen" in much the same setting where the Bad Girls earlier brought Nikki for what served as a foreshadowing of the "seeing lesson"). The question already asked of Nikki by the Bad Girls, "Tell me if you've known me before," is asked of them by the Baltic Lost Woman. She is standing down the street from the two, in front of a few other posed women who resemble the non-prominent Bad Girls we saw just a few moments before, posed whore-like on the street in Los Angeles. The two Bad Girls seem to be maintaining a link between Nikki and the Baltic Lost Woman (who remains an isolated Lost Woman dimension first "seen" by Nikki). One Bad Girl moves her hand towards the Baltic Lost Woman the same way the Phantom moved his hand while casting a hypnotic spell. The implication seems to be that until Nikki, in Los Angeles, takes some sort of resonant action in an upcoming event, the "curse" on the Baltic Lost Woman will continue unabated.

Cut to Los Angeles; Nikki flees the Rival Woman down the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bathed in red light, she gains entrance to a bar that has a small red lamp (Lost Woman) at the back of it. The bar's entertainment is a dancing woman; the second time we have seen the image of a twirling female. Then Nikki is guided by the red-dressed Lost Woman (who, in the pre-merged "seen", guided r/b Nikki in much the same way) past red curtains of what appears to be the wings of a movie theater, to the base of a staircase. She briefly whispers into Nikki's ear (their resonance grows as perspectives merge). The back of the Lost Woman's hand prominently gestures for Nikki to go up the stairs. Climbing to the top, Nikki arrives at the Listener's room. Pieces of previously "seen" exchanges between r/b Nikki and the Listener are reprised (merging them with the non-"seen"). Nikki, speaking in general about the events of her (projected) life, says that she doesn't know what came first and what came after. This is suggestive of a growing awareness of the consolidation (juxtaposition) of different time settings (as this scene has just demonstrated) from the various perspectives as the perspectives merge ( "telling of Time", "Past flooding in").

She then recalls a beating she received from the Husband, who was acting "weird" (BEFORE he went off to the carnies in the Baltic Present and started taking action as a developing Phantom-opposed character). The beating is shown, recalling the beating of the Baltic Lost Woman by the Phantom for the "quid pro quo" suggestion. The Husband says he is not who she thinks he is (the same words used in the Baltic Past by the Phantom-controlled Rival Woman), almost literally admitting that he (the Husband) is absent and the Phantom is present. He then says that he cannot produce children (also echoing the Baltic Rival Woman; the "seen" and p4 merging); cannot, as a surrogate to the Phantom-agenda, support feminine creative capacity. So who IS the father? The Phantom WOULD be enraged if some emerging NON-Phantom-controlled aspect of the Husband was the father, a Husband aspect not present in this scene but related to his resonance with the Husband rabbit (who evokes the stereotypical association of rabbits with fecundity (pregnancy) and the old-fashioned pregnancy test; "rabbit test"; is THIS why there are rabbits in INLAND EMPIRE?). And if the Phantom cannot father children, it stands to reason that his puppet Devon would be equally sterile. Remember that Nikki made no guilty attempt to hide her pregnancy from the Husband, telling him over dinner. More substantiation for this viewpoint will come later.

We return from the flashback to Nikki telling the Listener of going through a bad spell after her son died. (An unseen child has now been referred to as dead, as a dangerously problematical pregnancy and, twice, as impossible to conceive.) She compares her bad spell to sitting passively in a theater, watching her life's events play themselves out on the movie screen before her (increasing awareness, as projected perspectives merge, of the process of observing (projecting) an externalized, displaced (double) self). She then says that today is "slipping by" and rhetorically wonders, "how can this ("curse") be?" The telephone rings, which recalls both the arrow leading from the written words/symbols AXXONN to a pay phone, the Bad Girl who earlier tried to make a call and also perhaps the perspective-crossing (connection-facilitating) call on the red (Lost Woman) phone from p4 Nikki to the (upcoming event-related) Husband rabbit. The Listener answers. He says into the receiver that Nikki is there with him and that "it won't be long now...like a horse to a well". He adds that Krimp is nearby. The rabbit-related upcoming event (focused on Nikki and the Phantom, perhaps choreographed (horse to a well) by the telephone-connected Bad Girls) seems close to actualization (which will perhaps answer the question; "How can this ("curse") be?"). As the Listener talks, Nikki gets up and leaves the room, holding the screwdriver in her hand. On the back of her hand (recalling the prominent gesture of the Lost Woman) are the black letters "L.B.". She goes down the stairs and onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Bad Girls, including the blonde who earlier made the phone call, come up to her. They mockingly ask her where she's been. Nikki seems puzzled. Since they aren't sincerely asking her where she's been (presumably already knowing that through their "telephone connection" with the Listener) are they, instead, trying to orient and prepare her (provide choreography) for what comes next? Nikki then sees the Rival Woman sneaking up on her. She turns back to the Bad Girls, including the two prominent, recently-in-the-Baltic Bad Girls, and says, "Watch this move...", appearing to have acquired some grasp of what is unfolding. She snaps her fingers, something the Bad Girls did earlier at Smithy's house. She and the Bad Girls end up snapping their fingers in unison, perhaps indicating that she is now in touch with the previously unacknowledged parts of herself readily visible in the Bad Girls (and, through the two prominent Bad Girls, is also still linked to the Baltic Lost Woman's situation).

The Rival Woman runs up to Nikki, grabs the screwdriver from her hand and stabs her in the abdomen. If Nikki is pregnant, the Rival Woman would also be stabbing her baby; something the Phantom, who can't father children ("curses" feminine creativity) would want. The Rival Woman drops the screwdriver and runs off, horrified at what she's done while under the Phantom's spell. (No wonder there was confusion in her early scene with the detective as to who would receive the abdominal wound and who the actual victim(s) would be.) The Rival Woman ("seen" and p4 versions merged), stabbed in the Baltic Past by the hypnotized Baltic Lost Woman, has stabbed Lost Woman-resonant Nikki in Los Angeles, while herself under a spell. It seems therefore POSSIBLE that this attack was "payback" for a "debt" of inflicted violence. Is THIS the "move" Nikki was referring to?

The Bad Girls scatter. Wounded Nikki runs a distance down the street through the corner of Hollywood and Vine (referencing the film industry and, therefore, the Hollywood production of "47"; "...Blue Tomorrows") before collapsing near some street people. She is bleeding onto a "Walk of Fame" star, which recalls the foreshadowing blood-red star twirled during the carnie's scene in Smithy's yard, where the need for a transition to a more pragmatic, action-capable Nikki was indicated. Can embodying the role of a stabbing victim be Nikki's pragmatic action? The street people start to talk about bus transportation from Hollywood to Pomona (eastward, towards the Inland Empire that Nikki recently left). In the background is the flashing (seconds ticking) blue light. An ASIAN STREET LADY goes on about her friend Niko, who lives in Pomona and looks beautiful in a blond wig, like an actress, but is on drugs and turning tricks. This oblique reference to Nikki seems to be implying that there is frighteningly little difference between commercially-exploited actresses who portray women in trouble and real-world women in trouble like Niko, who may live just a bus ride from the cinema-famous intersection of Hollywood and Vine. (Has p4 Nikki, in her different personas, been an "intersection" of these two disturbing feminine possibilities?) Niko has a potentially fatal hole between her intestine and vaginal wall (similar to the stabbed and possibly child-carrying Nikki). But, also, Niko has a pet monkey. She has a way with animals (maybe she's not a resourceless victim after all). The Asian woman also mentions that the time is just after midnight (today has "slipped by").

Then a starkly eloquent STREET WOMAN holds out a lighter and says, "the light burns bright forever ...no more blue tomorrows..." Nikki looks into the flame (Lost Woman light) and, apparently, dies. After a few still and silent moments, we are slowly pulled back from the scene, revealing that cameras and movie crew have been filming it; the first time we have seen any crew or film equipment since Nikki entered Smithy's house. We have been watching the filming of the final scene of "...Blue Tomorrows". (The clearest reference to staging in a long time depicts the termination of an example (cinematic) of staging, like the de-staging of previously separated, nested projections as they merge). We have returned to a context seemingly similar to the pre-Smithy scenes (presaged by the black, blue and white Nikki-transition clothing, the scene at Devon's house and the reference to Hollywood and Vine). But where the early scenes that portrayed the filming of "...Blue Tomorrows" showed a superficial project disrupted by an unspecified "curse", this latest scene shows subtle action (discussed later) that can counteract a much more specified notion of that curse. For the time being, we now DO know that Nikki's role has NOT, by proxy, paid the debt of the two murders committed by the Baltic Lost Woman (Lost Woman-resonant Nikki only play-acted her death and so the Rival Woman did not revenge-kill anyone), but this pseudo-killing COULD still be part of a more complex, planned "corrective". So the similar-looking Los Angeles that the projection has returned to should be viewed as "dramatically" different from the Hollywood left behind at the door to Smithy's house. The overall tone is taking on a tentatively hopeful character; disparate pieces of a plan of action seem to be gradually falling into place (merging).

The Director calls "cut" and the crew applauds Nikki's performance. Initially, unresponsive, Nikki eventually rises and walks off the set. We briefly see Freddie, who earlier mentioned rabbits and thinking one's way out of a "tricky situation", (employing a corrective?). Nikki refuses an offered white robe (recalling the one worn during the transition back to Los Angeles); distracting "romantic whitewash" has now been fully dismissed as completion of her "47"-influenced "...Blue Tomorrows" role has set up (as we will see) a major alteration in her relationship to the part of herself that was attracted to Devon. She is given encouraging words by the Director, whom she hardly hears. An assistant drapes a blue robe on her. Oblivious to the robe and the crew, she walks out of the sound stage building. Cut to a brief shot of Nikki on the Lost Woman's monitor. Back to Nikki herself, who somehow seems to be aware that she is being "monitored". She then steps through the entrance of another building nearby and into the recognizable red-curtained wings of the movie theater she passed through earlier, when the red-dressed Lost Woman led her to the staircase that brought her to the Listener's room. She walks down an aisle into the red-seated theater. On the screen is her recent scene with the Listener where, ironically, she talked about the events of her life passing by like pictures projected on a movie screen (Nikki just displayed vague awareness that she is on the Lost Woman's monitor; another example of growing awareness of the phenomenon of projection as the projected perspectives merge). Next there is a shot, on-screen, of her approaching the dresser in Smithy's house with the strange lamp (Lost Woman reference) on top of it. Looking away from the screen, she then notices that the Listener is walking through the theater. He reaches the bottom of the staircase that leads to his room and then turns towards her. She looks back at the screen. The Listener is pictured there in the identical setting and pose. Nikki turns from the projection on the screen, removes her blue robe and heads for the "real" stairwell, which is in blue light.

Perhaps we have arrived at the significance towards which all of the film's references to the color blue were building: from a vaguely haunted, worn-like-a-robe, commercial-theatrical ("Blue Tomorrows...") role (Susan Blue), through a growing awareness of the "curse" (blue-filtered scenes detailing Nikki's relationships with Devon and the Husband, which resonantly refer to the "seen" Baltic Lost Woman/Phantom relationship), to intervention (blue light) with Nikki taking action for the benefit of the light-related Lost Woman.

She arrives at a landing below the Listener's room, recalling the landing in the Baltic where the Lost Woman knelt after committing murder. The Listener has led Nikki to where she needs to be (after the Lost Woman led her to the Listener). He has been a facilitator, related (through the Husband rabbit, who sat at the Listener's desk) to the rabbits' upcoming event. Wearing prominently crooked glasses (observer and mirror) mostly silent (listener and echo) he provided Nikki with a space for "seeing" and hearing an externalized self. That self, uninhibited r/b Nikki, displayed some qualities that were positively interventionist, while others were dangerously reckless. P4 "Good Girl" Nikki's projected evolution into a measured action-taker required contact with and assessment of these initially repressed qualities.

A large clock shows the time, no surprise, as shortly after midnight (today has "slipped by"; time to take action). Above a door we again see the letters/symbols; AXXONN. There is no longer an arrow after these symbols, perhaps because Nikki has finally arrived at where the arrow has always been pointing. She passes through the door and is startled to see that she is back in Smithy's house, in another building and upstairs from where she entered it before, two Nikki-transitions ago (distinct phases of p4 merging). Actualizing the scene she just viewed on the screen (awareness of the phenomenon of projection), Nikki approaches the dresser with the strange lamp (Lost Woman reference) on top of it. She opens the top drawer. Inside is the gun given to the Husband back in the Baltic; plans related to the Boss Man and his associates who were visually related to the rabbits are now directly involving (merging with) Nikki. Underneath the gun is the green coat the Husband wore when Nikki "magically" opened the front door of Smithy's house (transition); both apparently placed there by the upcoming-event-facilitating Husband (arrived from the Baltic; merging "geographically"). Nikki's hand reaches for the gun. Beneath a streak of red (Lost Woman reference) on the back of her hand we again see the letters "L.B.". She takes the gun out of the drawer and almost walks back out the open door with the writing above it, but decides to go down a hallway instead. She passes through an area of blue (action-related) light and returns to the landing, where the door she entered is now shut (time to act; no going back). She walks past it and enters the other doorway on the landing. We hear the sound of the boat horn associated with the rabbit room, and transition.

Cut to the "nearby", "curse"-related Krimp/Phantom moving down a hallway, bypassing a door into Smithy's house (just visited by Nikki). Cut to Nikki, passing through a green hallway (magic ahead) with small bright lights (resonant Lost Woman). She comes to a door marked "47" (source of the "curse"). Again the boat horn sounds. We have arrived at the EVENT, no longer upcoming; the film's climactic action. The Phantom appears before Nikki can open the door. She points the gun at him and pulls the trigger...

The Phantom's scheme to have the Rival Woman kill Nikki (presumably due to her her link to Baltic Lost Woman (the Phantom's "possession") and to the pregnancy (independent feminine creativity) which he could not father (could not, being totally self-concerned, support)) has taken the failed, misperceived form of a staged, cinematic murder scene. Though a skillful manipulator, the Phantom, somewhat predictably, invested his actions in a narcissistic, superficial medium; Hollywood commercial film-making. Confusion between what is scripted (with "47" as source) and non-scripted was earlier used by the Phantom to his advantage (setting up love triangles (under "47"'s spell) involving, directly or indirectly, Nikki and the Rival Woman; triangles that generated potential motivation for the murder of Nikki), but that confusion is now causing his own demise. This is not without foreshadowing. His use of Devon as an impediment ultimately failed to deceive Nikki (who realized there was "something more" going on). So the previously-mentioned corrective, in a more sophisticated form, has actually succeeded. The Phantom has been lured into a trap, wasting his capabilities on hypnotizing the Rival Woman into committing a meaningless cinema-tized killing (as Nikki looked into a flame and "died", the words "no more blue tomorrows" were something other than a death scene platitude) that seemed to have a "debt-paying", corrective logic of its own (the merging multi-personas of the Rival Woman avenging her Baltic murder plus removing the rival for the affections of her Hollywood husband Devon) while, conveniently, also disposing of the threat (Nikki) to the Phantom's "opening" to the Baltic Lost Woman. But his "seen" culpability (hypnotizing the Baltic Lost Woman so that she murders the Baltic Rival Woman and Baltic Husband), which serves as portrayal of a ruthless, narcissistic, multi-perspective manifested criminality, undermines this deceptive (mesmerizing) pay-back logic. "Seeing" murder-witness Nikki (who, through the merging process, may also be considered aware that the Rival Woman was hypnotized to (ineffectually) murder her) cannot therefore be diverted from exercising her acquired action-taking capability. The "tricky" manipulator of people has himself been tricked (the one who ultimately gets "screwed" by the way the remarkably mobile screwdriver is used); so the Phantom is defenseless in the face of Nikki's gunfire...

As he dies, light (Lost Woman) begins to replace the psychic darkness that has characterized him. (The apparent lack of bullet holes in the Phantom underscores his physical insubstantiality. He manipulated others into doing his physical dirty work. Also, of course, he is a projection. First seen on the Lost Woman's monitor (with the Boss Man), then indirectly suggested to p4 project-or p3 Nikki by the Old Woman (story of how narcissistic evil came into the world), he was finally "seen" by p4 Nikki and then directly contacted by her as the perspectives began to merge. He can be viewed as a specific version of the trouble-making faceless (paradigmatic) man in p1. Similarly, the p2 Lost Woman (having emerged from p1) is a specific version of the faceless p1 troubled woman. This reasoning makes the "curse" a specific version of the paradigmatic p1 trouble.) We then see his face replaced by a shocking still-frame resemblance of the quasi-demonic close-up of Nikki that we have seen twice before (literally attached to the Phantom here, it was figuratively connected to him the first time we saw it, coming out of the carnie-related clown's face). Nikki shoots this grotesquery (antinarcissistically destroying a critically observed, externalized self; exactly the opposite of the Phantom's utterly non-critical self-absorption), killing the dimension in both herself and the Lost Woman that submitted to and even calculatingly invited the assistance of the Phantom (or his puppet Devon), thereby acquiring the "curse". The smile on this grotesque face also recalls the mocking laughter of the Nikki-whore, (underscoring the linkage of Nikki and all women, as specific examples of the paradigmatic p1 "woman in trouble", to a self-destructive personal dimension) and the Bad Girls (who seem to embody some degree of a necessary self-awareness of this personal dimension which must be acknowledged, then (perhaps mercilessly) surpassed).

The "consequences" (culpability, connection to the Phantom) of two Baltic murders are therefore counteracted through a two-part neutralization: removing the source (Phantom; related to the Old Woman's story of the boy's reflection-based evil) AND the host (Baltic Lost Woman's/Nikki's submitting, inviting dimension; related to the story of the girl "lost in the marketplace", "shopping" for the kind of unfortunate help that the Phantom can provide) of the "curse" under which the TWO murders were committed (the TWICE-mentioned debt that "needed repaying").

We then see a slow-motion, visually unfocused version of Nikki's grotesque face, bleeding out in stylized profusion. Without refocusing, it changes back into the Phantom's head. The variability of time pacing (regular time, still frame, slow motion) and the scene's uncertain location in space (up a long staircase, near Smithy's house's interior, down a strangely lit green hallway, by the door marked "47") are accompanied by the variability of identity (Phantom, grotesque face, visual non-focus) in this subjectively appropriate way that a projected specific version of the faceless p1 man SHOULD die (de-project).

Next we are in the rabbit room and the door opens from the outside. The rabbits turn towards the door and then the room goes dark. Cut to Nikki backing into the room. Light (Lost Woman) flickers in through the door (like light on a movie screen as a projector (project-or) is coming to the end of a reel). So room "47" is the rabbits' room; the EVENT was initiated right outside their door, accompanied by boat horns (transportation; transition). Nikki enters and looks around the room. The rabbits have suddenly disappeared; their agenda (related to the expanded notion of pregnancy) has, as will be shown, merged with its facilitator, Nikki. We again see a bright blue light; one final action still lies ahead. The two prominent, Lost Woman-related Bad Girls return one final time. They lead the way for Nikki through the archway at the back of the rabbit room and down a hallway which serves as a connection to the bedroom where the Lost Woman views her monitor (up some stairs in Hollywood, Nikki reaches the (merging) Baltic hotel room, also connecting the (merging) Lost Woman with the rabbits who were initially seen on her monitor). When the Phantom told the Boss Man he was looking for an opening he apparently meant a literal, physical opening into the Lost Woman's room (recalling the p1 man's scene with the faceless woman in this same (b/w, paradigmatic-ized) room), in order to do what he intrinsically does; inflict the "curse" (a specific version of p1 trouble). Impeding the Phantom's wishes, Nikki passes through that "opening" herself.

The Lost Woman sees the Bad Girls coming on her monitor. The uninhibited and no-nonsense Bad Girls could be viewed as unapologetically unvarnished facilitators (far from pristine, openly detailing their Past involvement with the wrong kind of man, but ultimately promoting resistance to the "curse" (leading Nikki to the "seen" and then helping to choreograph Nikki's shooting of the Phantom and the grotesque face)) of a fundamental procreative dimension that all women share (which answers in the affirmative the repeated question about whether this feminine aspect (alternative to "curse"-supporting weakness) has been "known before"). They earlier maintained the link between Nikki and the isolated Baltic Lost Woman dimension. Now they are linking Nikki to the "non-Baltic" Lost Woman. Some sort of design is coming to fruition. The Lost Woman then sees HERSELF on the screen (as her monitor-projected, quasi-surrogate Nikki approaches). The Lost Woman is wearing a green (magic) top and red skirt. Nikki enters the room and embraces her. We see Nikki physically disappear (merge) into her project-or.

Nikki, who shot both the Phantom AND (indirectly) the isolated, inextricably Phantom-connected Baltic Lost Woman (one specific example of the feminine dimension represented by the grotesque face), "releasing" the Baltic Lost Woman (with extreme prejudice) from her "wicked dream", has thereby liberated the (rest of the) Lost Woman, who can now permanently leave the bedroom. (So the p2 Lost Woman projected p3 Nikki who projected p4 Nikki who "saw" and eventually eliminated the "cursed" Baltic Lost Woman dimension and then merged her weakness-destroying capability into the Lost Woman (with an assist from the prominent Bad Girls). The ultimate reason for this elaborate, surrogate-utilizing displacement and subsequent consolidation will be discussed below.) The Lost Woman passes through the rabbits' room and out the "47" door, which is now numbered 205 (a reasonable number for an ordinary, "un-cursed" room in the middle of a hallway on a second floor). She goes down some stairs and through a green (magic) passage, ending up inside Smithy's house. Smithy's orange walls are the color complement of the blue and green rabbit room walls she just left behind: the Lost Woman arrives at the physical complement to the event-resolution she has just gone through; Smithy's house, which the Phantom recently passed by and where Nikki retrieved the all-important gun left by the Husband.

Entering the room through the door from the outside (which Devon never could do, but remember that the Husband rabbit DID enter the rabbit room from the outside) is the Husband. He is, ultimately, a masculine dimension of the Lost Woman (who projected the p3 Husband rabbit and p3 Nikki, who then projected the p4 Husband and p4 Nikki who, in turn, personalized the "seen" with a Baltic-ized Husband). The Husband rabbit's inverse form of contact with the Phantom exemplified the dynamics of the Husband's complex role, first "working" for the now-dead Phantom as an abusive husband and as a spellbound philanderer and murder victim in the Baltic Past (absent when the Phantom was present), but then gradually becoming the green-coated transition facilitator, helpful gun transporter and occasional patient cuckold who (like Freddie and the Listener) observed but did not interrupt Nikki's romantic indiscretions with Devon ("shocking revelation" of his strategic passivity) as she went through a necessary evolution (experiencing a "tricky" situation (and resonance with the "curse") brought on by involvement with the Phantom's surrogate Devon) so that she gained the perspective and strength necessary to destroy both the Phantom and the Phantom-cooperative feminine dimension. Now permanently present, with the Phantom permanently absent, the Lost Woman's husband has overcome that which displaced him from his wife (i.e. the "curse"-facilitating weakness which displaced a necessary, pragmatic self-dimension (first seen in positive aspects of the Bad Girls and r/b Nikki) from the Lost Woman).

Also there, seen for the first time, is their son who, after being referred to variously as non-conceivable, unwanted, dead and a fetus stabbed with a screwdriver is alive, well and an unmistakable mini-version of his father, the Lost Woman's husband (i.e. the offspring (creation) of a dimension of the Lost Woman). So Nikki has facilitated a form of pregnancy as creativity, surrogate motherhood, which took place within these orange walls and included a scene where orange-clothed Nikki and the baby she was carrying (the Lost Woman's creative potential, inhabiting the p4 projection in the form of a threatened child) survived a violent attack by Smithy (who was absent ("possessed") while the narcissistically controlling, creativity-opposed Phantom was present). Recall when Nikki knelt in pregnancy-related pain in Smithy's kitchen while the Lost Woman's husband (related to a rabbit persona (symbolic of pregnancy)) was shown in a green (magic) hallway. Her painful, life-GIVING-related posture in that scene connects to and reverses (magic) the similar pose of the "seen" Baltic Lost Woman outside the room at the top of the stairs after she had TAKEN a life. And the black and white clothing she wore in the kitchen scene was a reminder that the issues threatening creativity were traceable to a troubled paradigmatic relationship dynamic first portrayed in the opening b/w scene. Nikki's projected evolution achieved the initiative necessary for feminine creativity to overcome the "spell" of non-fathering male narcissism, transforming the Lost Woman's threatened son, a Lost Boy (L.B.; the cryptic black letters on the back of Nikki's hand), into a Living Boy. Nikki removed the potentially fatal barrier (crimp, Krimp, Phantom, screwdriver wound, defiling hole through Niko's intestine and vaginal wall) between true mother (Lost Woman) and son (creation)) when she shot the Phantom. So Nikki has now fully actualized the rabbits' EVENT; destroying the Phantom and a form of feminine weakness as well as facilitating a "birth". Smithy's house has been transformed from a place of feminine misery (and a Hollywood inside joke) into a family home where the Lost Woman (the (red) heart of INLAND EMPIRE), no longer "half-born", is completed by assimilating her no-longer-"absentable" masculine dimension (after having earlier merged with her resonant weakness-killer Nikki) and by nurturing a child (creation). The Lost Woman ("Where am I? I'm afraid.") is not lost any more.

Next, we see Nikki in a blue spotlight. She has reappeared on the rabbits' room-stage. The fact that we can again see her, after her recent disappearance into the Lost Woman, emphasizes the notion that she is a projection (disappears/reappears; not subject to physical law) and that her immediate project-or p3 Nikki has not yet been shown as perspective-merged. She is apparently taking a final bow (receiving applause from the unseen rabbit audience which reminds us of other unseen INLAND EMPIRE audiences, including the covert one in p1) for successfully completing her "starring performance" as the Event's actual-izer (blue light). But why the puzzled, expectant look on her face? No answers at this point. There is then a dissolve into the image of a twirling ballerina, the third such image in the film (and also remember the dancing of the Bad Girls).

Cut to the Lost Woman, whose image dissolves (merges) into that of the p3 Old Woman who, like p3 Nikki, has not yet been shown as merging into the consolidating (p4+p3+p2+p1+"seen") perspective...

Before INLAND EMPIRE reaches its conclusion, the significance of the perspectives' initial elaborations and ultimate consolidation needs to be discussed. Nested projections (perspectives containing project-ors of subordinate perspectives which display externalizations of the project-or's personal dimensions (as well as, through influence, the personal dimensions of more encompassing project-ors) and also, possibly, subordinate project-ors) generate possibilities for both self-distancing and self-awareness. Projection, the projection of a projection etc., can be viewed as the creation of internal distances from varieties of (not only personal) painful history and culpability, but can also be viewed as a way to facilitate awareness of unrealized (in two senses of the word), not always flattering, but sometimes empowering self-dimensions; i.e. no one can see their entire self in a mirror until they have backed some distance away from it. Distancing (the detailed elaboration of perspectives (with compartmentalized autonomy) in the first half of the film) can be reversed into an informing assimilation of these (merging) perspectives (the second half of the film) by the consequently more self-aware encompassing perspective-source. This interpretation's hypothesizing of a nested structure which is made more "self-aware" by the "seen" before slowly dissolving through the merging of perspectives (even more "self-aware") may seem less contrived as a description of narrative flow if it is indeed describing a heuristic and evolutionary process. Already mentioned was the p2 Lost Woman's projection of the p3 project-or of p4 Nikki, who "saw" and then eliminated (accepted the culpability of) the distanced, self-destructive Baltic Lost Woman dimension before ultimately merging her thereby-less-compromised self with the p2 Lost Woman, facilitating the Lost Woman's liberation. All of INLAND EMPIRE's characters and incidents could be similarly considered: emerging from p1, complex characterizations and interactions evolved themselves (some positively, some not) within the boundaries of a nested structure and then retracted back (multiple points of view merging with each other) into a thereby broadened p1 (also brightened; the Lost Woman's lights and the recurring metonymic colors would ultimately be assimilated by their shadowy b/w source). Narcissism could be seen as something gone wrong with this elaboration-consolidation process, due to an (non-distanced) immersion in unquestioned personal dimensions that, from a more detached viewpoint, would be revealed as unacceptable.

If what INLAND EMPIRE is describing is the consolidation and return of newly-discovered/accepted self-dimensions to p1, then it is time to focus directly on p1. Recall the opening of the film. A phonograph introduces a radio play ("Axxon N.") which becomes a b/w movie which, in turn, becomes a color movie first showing the p2 Lost Woman. So a brief history of projection forms (radio, b/w film, color film) emanates from p1; an awareness of the phenomenon of projection exists, WITHIN p1 (hinted at earlier in several mentioned examples of projected awareness of projection), that is acute enough to justify locating the p1 project-or WITHIN the p1 perspective which the project-or projects (and from where the projection of the nested structure is initiated). So who or what is this project-or (turning verbal raw material (radio) into cinematic experience)?. The answer seems obvious; a conspicuously invisible and de-personalized ("faceless") version of writer/director Lynch; project-or of paradigmatic p1, which is specified into p2, where the Lost Woman projects onto her monitor (distancing through staging) the disparate, dreamlike materials of p3 (distancing through metonymic displacement and disguise) which provide both the project-or and many of the influences for p4 and its focal-point Nikki, who is barely recognizable (worker in the film industry) as a stand-in (distancing through surrogacy) for the p1 project-or (her multi-perspective "seeing" echoes her ultimate source's all-encompassing perspective). This growing-self-aware project-or (call it the Lynch-position) makes covert, non-p1 cameo appearances in the nested structure, in the form of cryptic b/w-related scenes ("seeing" lesson, phonograph mentioning "something to do with the telling of Time...") and in recurring appearances of the letters/symbols AXXONN. The b/w-related scenes have already been discussed, but what is the significance of AXXONN? AXON is from the Latin meaning axis, pivot point. Its Greek source adds the meaning "course of action". How about: "an action which is a turning point"? But there are two X's and two N's: there were TWO murders in the Baltic, the woman who resembled the Rival Woman TWICE said a debt needed to be paid and there were TWO retributive killings by Nikki. Consider AXXONN as a series of symbols: "A" through the growing insight and action-taking capability characterized by r/b Nikki's verbalizations in the Listener's room (an "A" conspicuously displayed on the wall); "XX"-the "cursed" source of the two murders (CROSSED out lives) in the Baltic Past; "O"-"seen" through a circular HOLE in silk; "NN"-is negated twice; Neutralized by Nikki (through killing the Phantom and the Phantom-enabling side of Nikki, the Lost Woman and (through connection to the b/w female paradigm) all women in trouble). The "debt" incurred by the two murders is "paid" off by taking action against both the Phantom and an externalized (projected) self. I know I'm going far out on an interpretive limb, but is it totally unreasonable that the "moral" of the p1 project-or's story would make recurring, encoded appearances at different places within the complex, evolving projection structure? And, if nothing else, it can serve as a mnemonic device. "Axxon N., the longest running radio play in history..."; the age-old story ("Past flooding in") of females both victimized by and cooperating with male narcissism, portrays a successful redemption through the process symbolized by A-X-X-O-N-N. This redemption's final purpose is to remove obstacles to a birth related to creativity, which parallels the Lynch-position's birthing of its own creation, INLAND EMPIRE. The initial nested structural elaboration from and subsequent consolidation back into the p1 project-or can therefore be viewed as a record of creativity's struggle to turn difficult-to-grasp, difficult-to-tame material into a completed work reflective of the creator's over-arching, deep-seated (perhaps depersonalized) intention.

It would be foolish to claim that all of INLAND EMPIRE fits easily into this interpretation's notions about perspectives and the A-X-X-O-N-N process. The characters (and empathic audience members, prior to any interpretation) experience baffling transformations, uncertain boundaries between the literal and the non-literal, influences from un-seeable sources and causes that produce distant, difficult-to-comprehend synchronistic effects; the result of a disquieting combination of dreamlike subjectivity and elliptically presented, ultimately backward-collapsing perspective-hierarchy. These experiences give the film an oddly familiar texture reminiscent of the just-out-of-reach significance of partially remembered dreams or the persistent subliminal certainty that non-certainty (including the non-certainty of magic) is inevitable: both notions are resonant with the passing of life in a inscrutably valued and often randomly hazardous culture that, against all odds, survives (a culture describable by an unavoidably strained hermeneutics that allows for loose metonymy, less-than-certain inductions, cryptic messages, noticeable absences and harsh little (magical) miracles). Though INLAND EMPIRE's eloquently disorienting texture is itself an achievement, this interpretation asserts that there is also a clear development and resolution to the film, despite the fact that a good deal of it cannot be grasped without supplementing information gaps with trial-and-error assumptions (paralleling the harrowing, disorienting trials and errors of the film's Nikki/Lost Woman protagonist), an all-too-familiar practice for a humanity born into a limited perspective. Only with persistence and acceptance of the likelihood of repeatedly making big mistakes can the viewer (and the protagonist) find their way to a resolution (which this interpretation is still in the process of establishing)...

Following the dissolve of Lost Woman into Old Woman at Nikki's mansion, we see a repeat of the head-turning close-up of Nikki that initiated the p4 projection. P3 Nikki's first head-turn revealed a differently-dressed Nikki, on a sofa across the room, finding out she had received a coveted role (of, unbeknownst to her, playing the "lead" in a projection). The new head-turn (leaving behind (finally merging) p3 Nikki in her green outfit) reveals a self-possessed and serene Nikki (in a blue dress (not an easily-discarded, transition-signaling robe) and with a different hairstyle) on that same sofa: a transfigured Nikki (recall puzzled, expectant-looking Nikki in the blue spotlight before the unseen, applauding rabbit room audience; did she, as the Event's actual-izer, serve as foreshadowing for this transfiguration?); on high in blue (Nikki's color) tomorrows. The Old Woman is no longer in sight (a sibylline Lost Woman projection-surrogate who shares the Lost Woman's Baltic speaking accent; after the Lost Woman merged into her, we saw the Old Woman's face slowly slide off the projection screen (merging into the other consolidating perspectives)). So transfigured Nikki is the final un-merged projection residue of the almost-consolidated (Lynch-position) project-or. The camera lingers on a "consequence" of the A-X-X-O-N-N formula: Nikki in a state (reflected in her last name) of hard-earned grace.

The credits sequence begins with a one-legged woman walking into a warm-colored interior (reminiscent of the room where the Boss Man showed indifference to the Phantom's wish for an "opening") which meets with her approval. This recalls, and seemingly counter-acts, the story of the one-legged woman who, hypnotized by the Phantom, murdered three first graders. The interior is filled with people; mostly females and many of them actresses (projections make stars and stars make projections). We see blonde, almost-actress Niko, alive and well with her pet monkey (she has a way with animals; i.e. apish male attitudes in need of training). A man described as a train yard worker in the credits (recalling the transition-related locomotive sounds) seems totally tamed (feminine control of transitions/evolutions) by actress Laura Harring. We see the source of all the Nikkis (actress Laura Dern), signaling the merging of the final remaining projection residue (transfigured Nikki) into the consolidated Lynch-position, which now advantageously possesses all of the (colorful) characters and thematic material developed by its subordinate perspectives as it projects the last moments of the film (in color rather than p1's original black and white). Another man, dressed in red (Lost Woman; (red) heart of the film) and surrounded by women, saws a phallic log, implying that it will be up to men (and not the Loreena Bobbitts of the world) to "surgically" remove the trouble-causing and, ultimately, self-victimizing attitudes of masculine narcissism (the men of INLAND EMPIRE also shed blood and suffer manipulation), but this will only be possible through openness to influences traditionally associated with femininity. The space elaborated by this credits sequence (described as "sweet" by the one-legged woman, which is the same term applied earlier by the Bad Girls to a symbol related to feminine fecundity (pregnancy, creativity); breasts) visually approximates these feminine influences. The Bad Girls and other women gradually form themselves into a celebratory choreography, finally uniting all the film's various images of twirling and dance; feminine creativity released by the removal of the forces oppositional to "pregnancy" (and possibly also a reference to Nikki's hard-fought and understated Grace-fulness, while under the refining pressure of being a women-overcoming-trouble). We see sporadic flashes of light as we near the end, like a projector (project-or) coming to the end of the last reel. A man accompanies the women dancers on the piano (possibility of gender (general) harmony). Seated in the midst of all this activity, as passive viewers, are a man and a woman, credited as "archaeologist" and "teacher"; non-theatrical roles signaling the notion that, at its completion, INLAND EMPIRE should be viewed in an edifying, non-subjective, historical/cultural/ethical context (i.e. as a working portrayal of the A-X-X-O-N-N redemption formula, which actualizes "openings" for never-anticipatable, yet utterly indispensable, creations); confirmation that the film does indeed come to a coherent resolution and that what we see here is a hopeful space where womanhood, and humankind, are no longer in trouble.

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