Review of Lost Highway (1997) by Willard M — 02 Feb 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***.

"In the East, the Far East, when a person is sentenced to death, they're sent to a place where they can't escape, never knowing when an executioner will step up behind them and fire a bullet into the back of their head. It could be days, weeks, or even years after the death sentence has been pronounced. This uncertainty adds an exquisite element of torture to the situation, don't you think? It's been a pleasure talking to you.".

"The Elephant Man" was the first David Lynch movie that I saw, introduced to me by my dear old grandmother around the age of 10. I, at that young of an age, had never been as deeply moved by a movie yet in my life. As the years went by, it came to pass that I forgot all about it, and my next Lynch film was much later in the form of "Mulholland Drive", a film that was a success in the field of critics at the time. I was wary of the fact, after researching a little bit about David Lynch, that my grandmother had done something astounding in my movie-going experience. She had introduced me into the avant-garde, experimental aspects of directing and writing, without having the slightest clue.

After a binge of renting and watching a mass of films that decidedly shaped my view of film-making, the power of surreal and imagination, I was home, at last, in the hands of the creative minds behind that substance that makes great cinema.

"Film to me is a magical medium that makes you dream... allows you to dream in the dark." -David Lynch.

Transfixed on worlds that delve deeper than fiction and transcend our deepest fears and dreams, I found myself in the local video store one night, and some unexplained impulse drew me to a video that only sounded faintly familiar. I brought it home, but it was awfully late, and I ended up falling asleep before I even really caught a glimpse of what the movie was about. My dreams on the couch that night were exceptionally strange, and I remember (as fabricated as this sounds), images and feelings that could only be expressed as being lost in the desert along the side of a winding road.

The movie, was returned without being watched all the way through, but when I finally came back and gave it a second shot, David Lynch's "Lost Highway" was one of the most disturbing, dreamlike, and memorable movies that I'd ever seen. Scary at some points, to extents that I actually turned it off a couple of times to catch breathers.

The filming location of most of the inside scenes were actually inside a supposedly haunted hotel in Death Valley. One actor on the set, was actually convinced that his character in the film was the devil. The film defies summarization, except that it is built out of the most bizarre events that you could imagine. Murder, kidnap, possession, demons, stalkers, betrayal; to name only a few. Some people think that the plot is unnecessary, that this is a film version of what hell must be and feel like. For this reason, you can either love it or hate it. Either way, you'll feel as you would in fact feel if you were trapped in motion and lost at every turn.

The story begins with Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) and his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette), who seem to be struggling to keep their relationship afloat. Fred is a jazz saxophonist, and when he goes to a gig one night, we get the feeling that he is concerned that his wife, who stayed home alone, might be having an affair. Strange things are happening to them, including a door buzzer that when answered by Fred, seems to be answered by his own voice; "Dick Laurent is dead". They receive menacing video tapes on their doorstep, apparently made by a stalker who has found a way into their house. Fred relays to his wife, one night, a dream that he had that furthers the couple's paranoia. But it isn't until Fred goes to a party, where he meets a stranger with a telephone, that the plot begins to jump from mysterious to outright creepy. Dick Laurent is indeed dead, but why would Fred receive that message, if he never met the man?

Well, that's where we begin in "Lost Highway", and I could go on about the plot without spoiling the real secrets of the film. This is because, as stated earlier in the review, the story is certainly non-linear in the conventional sense. Enjoy the experience for yourself, though. But keep in mind, this film is definitely in the same vein as Lynch's other mind-warping movies such as "Mulholland Drive" and "Twin Peaks".

So buckle up, drink some coffee, and prepare to be taken on a ride that will permanently alter your notions about memory and the future, life and maybe afterlife.

"How I remembered them. Not necessarily the way they happened.".

"Lost Highway" (1997) 10/10.