Review of Lost Highway (1997) by Matthew P — 05 Jan 2009

Lynch fans love this movie. I'm not a Lynch fan. I have nothing against him, and I don't sing his praises like so many others. Rather, I'll rate this film on its own merits.

I was highly intrigued by the first half of the film. I was drawn in by the quiet, dark feel of the possible cheating wife, and the possible murdering husband, and its means of getting there with the videotapes. Where the film derailed for me was the moment Pullman's character is discovered to have mysteriously disappeared from his cell and the parallel storyline of the mechanic picks up. Wait a minute. Who is this new guy? Why should I care about him? SPOILER: By the end, we figure out the two of the men are one in the same. Unfortunately, there's so much extra crap thrown at us to confuse us, like Robert Blake's character and the unexplained means by which Pullman has escaped to become his new identity. Lynch has told us that he knows what the purposes and explanations are for each of the characters and plot holes. I sure as hell can't, and I find it hard to believe that Lynch has given us the keys to figuring it out on our own easily enough. Some Lynch fans may attempt to explain the guised points in the film, but truly, its pure speculation on their part: Lynch is the only one that really knows. As a viewer, this is not only frustrating, but worse .... BORING.

Details of the film aside, what is the value of a film such as this? In my opinion, Lynch is having fun playing with noir style and using dissociative identity disorder to give interesting plot twists. It's flash with no substance, art for the sake of art. There's nothing wrong with that in my opinion, but it tends to cause viewers to confuse entertainment with value. In the case of art, Pollock wowed many with his abstract art using "action painting." Magritte on the other hand, simply painted a pipe and wrote the words beneath it: "This is not a pipe." Which one I wonder holds more meaning. I recommend film viewers to keep that in mind.