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This film simultaneously pays homage to and reshapes the film noir 'genre' into a turn of the century neo-noir that only David Lynch could make.

The opening half of the film is slow, difficult at times to follow and understand, yet is central to the second half of the film where films make as much sense as one could want in a film from this director. It is almost as if the first half becomes a 'b-film', played before the main spectacle (many film noirs from the defining period of the 1940s and 1950s were featured as such - deliberately low-budget). Lynch's 'main-spectacle' begins when car-mechanic Pete seems to metamorphise into Fred, a convicted murder in a death-row cell. The innocence youth Pete is released upon identity, and Lynch from then on in abounds in tributes to classic film noir imagery, such as a burning beach house, high speed west coast car chases, and a chilling camera shot that makes the viewer think the mechanic will get crushed by the car he is operating under, as poor Nick perished in 'Kiss Me Deadly'.

However, the two noir motifs that blend the 'b-film' and 'the main spectacle' are the 'femme fatale', played by the same actress (a striking brunette, and a deadly blonde. Perhaps their character's relationship to the plot makes more sense in light of Mulholland Drive's lesbian sex scene?), and the obese and incompetent detectives. The development of these characters through the two 'films' within a film binds the narrative together whilst leaving several threads of the plot open to question. The most valid interpretation is as the director himself as said, in life there are no answers, so why should his films have answers? Like all noir films, that were not made under Hollywood's strict codes of production, Lynch challenges the 'safe' world of classical Hollywood cinema, in which questions are answered and film making rules obeyed. For this reason, if one can categorise Lynch, he is a director of noir films. A rebel who questions both filmmaking and becomes a modern philosopher.

Lynch's genius is that he at once acknowledges the importance and ambiguity of the noir 'genre' (in film criticism it is highly debatable whether noir is even a genre in its own right, or not a hybrid of the gangster or detective), yet challenges its boundaries, presenting a 'b-movie' as both a prelude yet also an integral part of his main feature. Lost Highway takes an already ambiguous 'genre', and creates a movie that breaks even its' 'genre's codes of production. The house doesn't burn. The mechanic isn't crushed. Who the hell is the mystery man?! Lynch's ambiguities elevate the mystery surrounding Kiss Me Deadly's 'Great Whatsit' to extended hyperbole, that extends the noir 'genre' boundaries to the point where the genre is 'noir', it is 'Lynch'.

This film should be looked at as a challenge to criticism surrounding the noir 'genre' and is a central part of Lynch's filmography. It should be watched after seeing 'Kiss Me Deadly' and after being acquainted with Lynch's other films.

This film declares 'history is written by the winners', then attempts to somehow condemn the torturous and barbaric atrocities perpetuated by the soldiers controlled by the iron hand of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to the realms of amnesia. However, such a tragic history proves impossible forget and ghosts past and present haunt Ramirez and his friend Carrasco.

Their nemesis proves to be Captain Zuniga, and the plot flashes backwards forwards from a barren northern desert concentration camp for political prisoners, where the Captain carries out the orders from his superiors without a twinge of conscience towards the end of the dictatorship. This is juxtaposed with scenes from the rainy post-dictatorship setting of coastal town Valparaiso, where Zuniga reunites with those who suffered under his orders. Both settings are sad, lonely locations reflecting the tragedy and sense of foreboding death of living under a dictatorship and of having to deal with the guilt of baring witness to massacre.

The gloomy settings and un-censored violence portrayed by Justiniano reveal two things. Firstly that Chilean national films have progressed to the point where such images are not viewed as subversive, but sadly, that the period of subversion continues to censor day-to-day life and memories seek the refuge of forgetting, of the past evaporating into amnesia. 'We have to learn to forget' muses Zuniga, 'One must look to the future'. That is difficult, as those moralistic enough not to conform to the patriotic legitimizing of socialist genocide practised by Pinochet, such as Ramirez and Carrasco learn.

However depressing this film may appear, its values lie in its regeneration of Chilean cinema. Chilean accents provide dialogues to Chilean plots in quintessentially Chilean places, and help to continue the artistic tradition of socialism in this country. Allusions to future hope can be seen in the survival of the pregnant lady, who declares her child 'is going to be a girl and will be called Tanya'. This echoes Isabel Allende's reclaiming of the past through the strength of female lineage and literature, as her character Blanca reveals her daughter 'will be a girl and will be called Alba'. It also shows the true value of artistic tradition, as the film reveals that Pinochet's famous quote, 'In this country not one leaf moves without me knowing about it', to have come from 1001 Arabian Nights. Here, Scheherazade has to continue the trend of storytelling to stay alive. By telling the story of the past, Justiniano attempts to revitalise Chilean cinema, exorcising the demons of the past, so that in the present, these leaves can move without the dictator stopping them.