Darkened Room

For the 1929 silent film, see Darkened Rooms. For the study of Spiritualism, see The Darkened Room.

Darkened Room is an 8-minute film directed by David Lynch. It first appeared on Lynch's website, DavidLynch.com, in 2002. It has subsequently been released on the DVD anthology Dynamic:01.

Darkened Room
Directed by	David Lynch
Written by	David Lynch
Produced by	David Lynch
Starring	Jordan Ladd Etsuko Shikata Cerina Vincent
Cinematography	David Lynch
Release date	April 12, 2002 (2002-04-12)
Running time	8 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Premise

In the first half of the film, a Japanese woman shows us her apartment in Tokyo and muses on the amount of bananas produced worldwide. The woman then tells us that her friend next door is sad. In the second half, a blonde woman (Jordan Ladd) sits on a sofa and cries. Then a brunette woman (Cerina Vincent) enters and says cruel things to her, before threatening to tell her the truth. The film ends with a fade to black.

Cast

• Jordan Ladd as Girl #1^[1]
• Etsuko Shikata as Herself
• Cerina Vincent as Girl #2

Production

The film was shot on digital video. In an introduction that appears on the Dynamic:01 DVD, Lynch calls the film "an experiment based on some idea", and says the film "was always some kind of tie in to bananas, information concerning bananas, so we can all learn some things as we enjoy the shows". Lynch then laughs.

Analysis

The film has been compared to other Lynch productions for the prominence of the act of crying^[2] and the presence of a lost girl.^[3]

It has been suggested that Darkened Room served as an inspiration for several motifs in Inland Empire, including the "Lost Girl" figure, who represents entrapment and narrative disconnection. Key visual and thematic elements, such as the cigarette-burn hole in a silk slip and the symbolic significance of a watch, are echoed in the later film, linking the two works stylistically and narratively. Additionally, actress Jordan Ladd, who played the blonde woman in Darkened Room, appeared in Inland Empire as Terri, one of the Valley Girls, further connecting the two films.

Šekrst argues that the short film uses performative speech acts to construct identity, particularly through the interactions between the two female characters, drawing connections between Darkened Room and Lynch’s later works, such as Inland Empire and noting shared elements like the use of confined spaces to symbolize psychological entrapment and the layering of narrative realities.^[4]