Name: Retro Film Review: Lost Highway (1997)
Item: Lost Highway
Rating: 15
Author: @drax

(source: tmdb.org)

There are people who like David Lynch's films and people who claim to like David Lynch's films. Latter category usually includes people who claim to understand David Lynch's films. Sometimes when asked to explain David Lynch's films they claim that everyone who needs explanation probably suffers from mental deficiency. The author of this review likes David Lynch's films but he never advanced to the next stage of Lynch Understanding Syndrome. Hence , I must confess that I didn't understand Lost Highway, his 1997 film. That wouldn't be problem - real problem is that I didn't like it.

Plot (or what goes for plot in this film) starts with Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), Los Angeles saxophonist who lives in affluent neighbourhood and suspects his wife Renee (played by Patricia Arquette) of cheating. Real problems arise when he starts receiving video-tapes of someone stalking his home. Next tape features him murdering Renee and soon afterwards he is arrested, tried and put on the Death Row. However, once in Death Row Fred literally transforms into Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty), young car mechanic. Pete is immediately released from prison and returns to garage, where one of his clients is gangster Mr. Eddy (played by Robert Loggia) whose girlfriend Alice happens to be spitting image of Renee.

Hundreds of pages of text were written in various attempts to find some sort of explanation behind confusing and apparently meaningless plot of Lost Highway. The most probable explanation is in the prosaic fact that Lynch didn't make film five years after his disastrous attempt to exploit waning popularity of Twin Peaks with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Lynch, seeing that the more snobbish segment of cinephile demographics have found new champion in Tarantino, simply had to remind them of his existence. In doing so, he and his co-writer Barry Guifford simply gathered bits and pieces from various sources and assembled them without any concern for some meaning, continuity or common sense. All that baffled critics but apparently excited hardcore Lynch fans who had accepted display of Lynch's vanity as example of profound Art.

On the other hand, it would be unfair to treat Lost Highway as worthless. The cast included some very talented people like Jack Nance, Lynch's long-time collaborator, killed during production and Robert Blake (of past Baretta fame and present-day infamy), almost unrecognisable under heavy make-up. Bill Pullman, before his character's unexplained disappearance, seems to play his role very well and some of the scenes depicting discovery of videotapes could have provided material for horror classics. Unfortunately, all that talent only manages to underline film's weaknesses, which are even less excusable than in case of less respected film maker. Thankfully, Lynch learned from that experience and improved quality of his subsequent films, but even for those who like his work Lost Highway is nothing more than dead end.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on November 6th 2003)