Journey into the unknown and the unknowable (Lost Highway (DVD))

Name: Hunting_Bears

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Product:	Lost Highway (DVD)
Date:	16/04/02 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a great film noir, classic Lynchian nightmare, a good mystery

Disadvantages: confusing in places, not for everybody, some may find it slow

David Lynch made this film from an idea he had one night driving home from the set of "Twins Peaks: Fire Walk with Me". He had the simple scenario of a troubled couple receiving video cassettes in the morning.
From this idea, David Lynch and writer Barry Gifford wrote "Lost Highway". A bizarre and quite frankly insane movie about deception,madness,murder and vouyerism.
The film is split into two main parts. The first half deals with a saxophonist named Fred Madison who is so insecure about his marriage to the the lovely Renee, he murders her after suspected infidelities, which could have happened but may not have done. Lynch films the first half in a quiet fashion and with low film noir style lighting and very still performances from Fred and Renee. Lynch was certainly influenced by Franz Kafka in my opinion. Fred is a classic Kafkaesque character. Fred looks like he is always thinking about the possibilities of what others could be thinking. It is made very clear that Fred is paranoid. Once they start getting the videotapes filmed from an impossible high angle through their home (the camera seems to glide). Things become really unsettled when at a party Fred is confronted by a extremely pale little man played by Robert Blake. In this now classic scene the little man says to Fred; "We've met before haven't we?". Fred replies;
" Where is it you think we've met?". The man grins and says;
" At your house, don't you remember". Pauses for extra unnerving effect then says with absolute weirdness:
" Has a matter of fact I'm there right now".
The viewer is left startled, scared because this is the first unexplained moment of the film. Lynch understands the rules of the horror genre because in horror films, the origins of the unnatural are never revealed. This man who plays a big part later in the film is of an unknown origin. But in the film he acts as a kind of guardi
an angel (a very scary one) to Fred.
Fred is understandably freaked out by his encounter and leaves the party. When the couple have recieved more video tapes,Fred calls the police. When asked about the security of the home, Fred shows an odd hatred for video camera's in which he tells the police officer "I like to remember things my own way. Not necessarily the way they happened". This key line is a clue to the unravelling of the film. When Fred is arrested for the brutal murder of his wife, which he witnesses on a videotape, he seems confused and adamant that he is innocent.
The second part of the film begins with Fred languishing in prison, when he complains of headaches. One morning he simply wakes up as Pete Dayton a verile and sex mad young garage mechanic. He is everything that Fred is not. Normal viewers of films will probably turn it off round about here. It will freak people out that the film just changes direction and tone. Where the first half was slow and ponderous, the second half is violent, fast and sexy.
The film follows Pete Dayton who is a garage mechanic who is entangled with a gangster called Mr. Eddy who is also as a split identity, he is also a porn producer called Dick Laurent. Pete falls for Mr. Eddy's girlfriend Alice Wakefield who was played by Renee (Patricia Arquette). She is now blonde and a porno actress. The two young lovers plan to run away together but things distort even more when Alice rejects Pete and Pete turns back into Fred who now avenges himself by killing Dick/Eddy and informing himself that "Dick Laurent is dead", which is the mysterious message that Fred recieves on an intercom at the beggining of the film. It is very confusing but there can be sense made out of it. Lynch never plays by the rules of the natural world. He creates his own places. They are weird and terrifying but they are not bound by natural convention. Like Kafka's "Metamorphosis", Fred wakes up
to have found himself changed. The film follows a nightmare logic where things appear and disappear then reappear again. It bruises the brain but most of Lynch's film's do. The key to the film is the madness theme. Fred is quite disturbed, perhaps he wanders into a fantasy world , where he can be verile and cool.He has several women after him, he's friends with a gangster. Then the fantasy distorts and his own memories invade his dreams of a better existence. Its all very existential and odd. But the film is so good and yet it can alienate the viewer at the same time. But the beauty of Lynch is that he is not quite mad enough. Explainations are possible you have just got to work with your own logic and apply it to the film. If you believe that Fred can simply change because thats the way it is, then it works. If you have some great pyschological explaination and it works for you, that's good.
Lynch merely shows you his world. He will never explain it for you.
Like the master himself says;
" Mystery is good, confusion is bad".
I feel " Lost Highway" borders on the two. Mysterious and confusing.

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