Review of Lost Highway (1997) by Yash S — 14 Sep 2008

Lost Highway is apparently about a man who, suspecting his beautiful wife of infidelity, is on the brink of a mental breakdown. As is his wont, David Lynch throws even the most necessary and commonplace conventions of storytelling out the window within the first ten minutes itself. The whole film is a vast sequence of one ghoulish absurdity followed by another. What is generally the hardest thing to swallow here, is the point in the film when one character literally transforms into ANOTHER PERSON, in the most deadpan manner, and without any trace of allegory or metaphor. This transformation has been interpreted as the onset of the cuckolded husband's insanity, necessitating a shift in perspective wherein all that follows is merely a dream or an imagined reality, all taking place in the madman's mind.

Viewers tend to either love or despise these sort of films. My own feeling is that Lynch mystifies his own intentions as an artist, rather than illuminate them, and this is the worst that can be said of him. He really seems to enjoy disorienting his viewers just for the sake of it. In order to state a profound truth about human nature, it shouldnt be necessary to make something so opposed to our ordinary human intuition. Everyone who watches your film should be able to say, "Yeah, I get it." There are films that use conventional "realist" techniques to tell stories that are far more complex than what Lost Highway offers. Another thing is that even this "interpretation" (provided by Lynch himself) is rather forced ; a great deal of all that goes on here is dull and often downright unintelligible. Then there's the nudity. There is a point in Lost Highway when the sex becomes gratuitous, and starts verging on softcore pornography. Patricia Arquette gets nailed by at least four different men in this film, and it doesnt stop there.

Lost Highway is a gorgeously noirish film to look at, supported by an appropriately sinister sound design. It is, however, nothing more than a montage of scenes juxtaposed at random ; viewed separately, some of these are good ideas, but when joined together they seem arbitrary and meaningless. How much its worth anyone's while to watch this film is an entirely subjective thing. I'm glad I saw it.