Lost Highway

"Lost Highway" is a great many things, but often seems to be reduced to a love-it or hurts-my-head-from-the-confusion, so-I'll-just-dismiss-it kind of movie. Some critics have written it off as self-indulgent swill, saying that only people who could hope to appreciate it would be Lynch himself and his plethora of wide-eyed adoring fans, etc, etc. I myself have never actually been a huge fan of Lynch, perhaps because I thought his stories didn't take themselves seriously enough, were just too darn quirky, who knows. Still, I've always admired his talent for creating beautiful, disturbing imagery, and "Lost Highway" has to be my favorite film of his, and possibly one of the most beautiful and mesmerizing I've ever seen! Certainly not for everyone, as those who want a definitive "answer," who think that seeing it again and again is really going to explain everything, or those who are simply into the ol' explosion-packed action blockbusters are going to be left shaking their heads. It's definitely open to interpretation. Myself, I'm not one to offer any new insight, I view it as--SPOILER AHEAD??--a purely subjective movie, with nearly all the events seen and largely imagined by its protagonist, Fred Madison, and once you can simply accept him as insane (or at least very imaginative!) you can simply quit puzzling over it and allow yourself to enjoy the ride.

While incarcerated for killing his wive in an act of jealousy, he embarks on a "psychogenic fugue" as an act of last-minute escapism from the looming dread of his upcoming execution--sort of like Ambrose Bierce's "Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge"--imagining himself as a younger, more likable/worthwhile guy (valued auto mechanic, "Mr. Eddy's" favorite), with people who care about him (his parents and girlfriend, as opposed to his real-life murdered wife who didn't even bother to go to his musical performances), and definitely more virile, as he is able to both attract and fulfill his "wife" (seen here as the slutty, icy femme fatale-type he always suspected her to be). However, try as he may, he ultimately can't avoid his past (notice how the fantasy him is put off when he hears Fred's jazz song on the radio in the garage), and thus after the fantasy Alice/Renee rejects him in the desert, he immediately turns back into his typical view of himself--hurt, older, sensitive, vulnerable (represented by his nakedness)--proving that even his fantasies fail him, and thus he's left to die an unpleasant death in the electric chair after all (notice the way he violently contorts in the closing moments, almost as if he's being electrocuted). Call him a modern-day murderous Walter Mitty I guess. The Fred Madison/O.J. Simpson comparisons made by some are interesting--if just a BIT cynical!--though I have to halfway wonder if that real-life spousal jealousy murder case provided any grain of inspiration for this fictional one. The cast is impressive and do a great job; Bill Pullman definitely has the haunted, deer-in-the-headlights look that his confused, out-of-it character requires, though at the same time I don't know if he quite portrays the extreme jealousy and animal savageness deep down inside that caused him to murder his wife as gruesomely as he did (if of course you even want to accept what was on that final videotape as something that actually happened in the first place!). Needless to say, the whole moebius-strip "twist" of having the film end at its beginning greatly complicates any interpretation; even without it, the film could STILL be difficult to decipher by some (heck, I'm still not even really sure what the significance of the Mystery Man was!)

Perhaps the film could have benefited from a few extra scenes or lines of dialogue to make it a little less cryptic for the more literal-minded members of the audience, but still, even by suggesting that you'd be implying that there was one concrete explanation for the film, which there most certainly is not.

Regardless, all plot and interpretations aside, you can almost certainly enjoy for its images, its music (an EXCELLENT soundtrack), for its mood and atmosphere, and simply for it as a whole: dare I say, it's almost more of an experience than anything (though for what it's worth, at the same time I can't think of the last time I saw a film--or work of art period, for that matter--that provoked such a wide variety of interpretations and opinions, as should hopefully be the case with ANY great work of art).

Fascinating.

I started this film upon renting it one night at 11:00 PM. I finished at about 1 in the morning. I was so stunned and awestruck that I stayed up until 3 in the morning to watch it again. This is one of the most spell-binding movies I have ever seen. Each time I see it my theory of the plot thickens. What I love about the movie is that it leaves you with the option to fill in the blanks. You will keep asking what happened and why that happened, but that is what makes the movie so awesome. David Lynch's skewed opinion of reality is very inspiring and I feel that my reality has changed ever since I watched it. Having watched it 13 times I can pretty safely say that my theory of the plot is set, but I still love to ponder exactly why.

All hail David Lynch. All hail the other David Lynch.

Lynch is not a complex man, I think; it is easy to read him. But he is cinematically articulate and its a pleasure of a special sort when you meet an articulate artist. His interest is simply described: duals.

All his films work with some exploration of this idea. What makes him interesting is that he doesn't work the usual way, with a reality and then a surreal overlay. Both elements in his experiments are what we coarsely call "surreal." The game in traveling with him is an investment in the idea that there is no anchor to reality, that all references are among imaginations, sometimes twisted. "Mulholland" was a little too conventional for me because you could actually explain things and one of the realities was sorta real if you ignored a few things.

My favorite Lynch is "Velvet," which imposes the two warring realities on film genres. The most fun is the seemingly straight "Straight" story, which is perhaps the most bizarre encounters of dual strangeness because it seems so ordinary. Dualing roots that keep getting mowed.

But if you are into Lynch, this is an extraordinary pleasure, this one. Its the most obvious in plan, the least hidden in the swirl of two worlds. Neither world is anchored in reality and each hallucinates the other. Probably the only anchor with reality is the most disturbing character in appearance, The Robert Blake guy.

But even these two surrealities are nested in cinematic realities. One is the gangster movie, elevated to cosmic status by the French new wave. The other is visual jazz and the accompanying dream linkages that have been similarly blazed, starting with Dennis Hopper so far as American films.

What you are open to determines what you can get, I suppose. What Lynch provides is a sort of post-post modern notion of film as sometimes centered in itself, with its own cosmologies and lives that always refer to other film notions and never to real ones. There is no fold of us as viewer, no acknowledgment of our world at all (except for the mysterious videos). Celestial madness.

I prepared for this by watching four bad Holmes movies in a row. How we detect and discover is what this is about and is so superior to what we normally encounter, you should watch it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The first time I watched this movie I enjoyed it but was left confused as to what was really going on. As a huge fan of Lynch I was expecting as much. So a few days later I watched it again and everything clicked and made perfect sense and seemed so obvious this time.

If you hated it the first time and found nothing interesting then you probably shouldn't watch it again and put yourself though the torture a second time. But if you feel how I did, watch it again and you'll enjoy it much more.

This movie does require a second viewing for a complete understanding of what's happening. In Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire you get what's going on the first time. Multiple viewings make the details much clearer but you don't leave confused like with Lost Highway.

Great story, the first part is truly one of the scariest things I've ever seen. I think one thing about this movie that is interesting is that almost all of the actors are playing roles that you've never seen them do before. And they do it very well. I was a little apprehensive about Pullman being the lead, as I know him from Spaceballs and Independence Day, but he is very good in this. You rarely get a bad performance in a Lynch movie.

My only criticism is that the movie is a little slow and long. Not in a bad way but I do find myself waiting for the end as opposed to some movies where I don't want them to end.

Clearly, as with most of David Lynch's films, Lost Highway is not for everyone. It is, as Lynch intended it to be, a film realization of a dream. In this regard, it is comparable, in terms of artistry and raw intensity to Kurosawa's _Dreams_. Indeed, in terms of sensory experience - cinematography and sound, for example - Kurosawa and Lynch have few rivals. However, the comparison falls away rather quickly in consideration of the film's content. Lost Highway is really no dream, but a nightmare.

Let's face it, like it or not, everything Lynch does is intentional. This film has inspired polarized reviews here on IMDB. Those looking for a plot-heavy movie that they do not necessarily have to pay attention to tend to despise it. Those who are open to allowing this manipulative, intensely disturbing and thought-provoking film to carry them into its own parcel of hell love it. This is, in my opinion, what good art can do.

Like a dream, Lost Highway has as many plots as it does viewers with their own individual interpretations and perspectives. It forces itself upon you with a vengeance, but simultaneously encourages the kind of disengagement you experience when you are conscious that you are dreaming.

I recommend Lost Highway highly. See it with intelligent, open-minded friends who like to talk about film experiences. And expect that the conversation will keep you up way past your bed time.