Lost Highway

Buckle your seat belts: this film is quite the ride. As so often with David Lynch's movies, 'Lost Highway' doesn't bother with a traditional narrative and follows its own, dreamlike (or nightmarish) logic. It is a wild, expressionist work of art, and while it starts on a slow, brooding note, the film soon explodes into a crazy, violent trip that hooks you competely and doesn't let up. My advice to people unfamiliar with Lynch's work is this: just enjoy the experience and let yourself be immersed. While it is fun to analyze Lynch's movies, especially his most surreal ones, they're not mysteries that require resolution in order to be enjoyed.

As for the filmmaking itself, the pacing is fantastic throughout, the cinematography outstanding and the cast of character actors like Bill Pullman, Robert Loggia and Patricia Arquette simply a joy to watch (especially Loggia gets to shine in a wonderfully over-the-top part). Another aspect that should not go unmentioned is the music. The orginal score by Angeolo Badalamenti (who is to Lynch what John Williams is to Spielberg) is hauntgingly beautiful, but equally important is the amazing soundtrack - featuring greats like David Bowie, Lou Reed, Rammstein, Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor and more - which fits and enhances the images on screen perfectly.

As far as I'm concerned, this is Lynch at his best. 'Lost Highway' is a dark, violent, surreal, beautiful, hallucinatory masterpiece: 10 stars out of 10.

Favorite films: IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/

Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: imdb.com/list/ls075552387/

Lesser-Known Masterpieces: imdb.com/list/ls070242495/

Favorite Low-Budget and B-Movies: imdb.com/list/ls054808375/

I don't think this film can be fully enjoyed or appreciated without digging deeper into various analyses and interpretations. Or without having a broader understanding of Lynch and the way he creates films or uses symbols. While enlightening, it does point to the film perhaps not fully standing on its own. It's really a piece of a much larger puzzle in the Lynch universe. To really understand it requires effort. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. It will depend on the viewer.

I'm not sure if there is much content or ideas in Lost Highway that aren't explored in a more satisfying way in other Lynch content. I think calling it a test run or precursor for Mulholland Drive (as I've heard) is apt. It almost feels like a shadow reflection or imitation of his other works.

To watch the film as it is presented, on a surface level, would leave most viewers completely unmoored, frustrated and confused. There's an icy, aloof detachment and distance to the film (including some very subdued performances) that almost pushes a viewer away in an unwelcoming manner. As if to say, you're just not smart enough to understand this, with a patronising pat on the back - like the important one given to Fred within the film. I can understand why many viewers would bristle at this kind of artsy condescension. It's definitely not a film that wants to hold a viewers hand, quite the opposite.

I think this film is a moody and disconcerting experience, but not the most enjoyable of Lynch content to consume. I definitely wouldn't call it a fun watch. If I was to revisit the films of Lynch I don't think this would be a priority, but I appreciate it for what it is.

I don't know if the long runtime is justified. It makes watching it even more of an investment. I'd be curious to see if the same ideas could be conveyed in a more condensed fashion.

I do enjoy watching Bill Pullman and Balthazar Getty in the film. Their performances are pretty spot on I think. But performances become pretty irrelevant when the whole idea of plot or narrative breaks down. It just comes untethered.

It pretty much goes without saying that there is some spectacular imagery too. It is Lynch after all.

I had a really bad headache while watching, which made my viewing even more uncomfortable. The fact that wife killer Fred was simultaneously experiencing one was a bit trippy.

All hail David Lynch. All hail the other David Lynch.

Lynch is not a complex man, I think; it is easy to read him. But he is cinematically articulate and its a pleasure of a special sort when you meet an articulate artist. His interest is simply described: duals.

All his films work with some exploration of this idea. What makes him interesting is that he doesn't work the usual way, with a reality and then a surreal overlay. Both elements in his experiments are what we coarsely call "surreal." The game in traveling with him is an investment in the idea that there is no anchor to reality, that all references are among imaginations, sometimes twisted. "Mulholland" was a little too conventional for me because you could actually explain things and one of the realities was sorta real if you ignored a few things.

My favorite Lynch is "Velvet," which imposes the two warring realities on film genres. The most fun is the seemingly straight "Straight" story, which is perhaps the most bizarre encounters of dual strangeness because it seems so ordinary. Dualing roots that keep getting mowed.

But if you are into Lynch, this is an extraordinary pleasure, this one. Its the most obvious in plan, the least hidden in the swirl of two worlds. Neither world is anchored in reality and each hallucinates the other. Probably the only anchor with reality is the most disturbing character in appearance, The Robert Blake guy.

But even these two surrealities are nested in cinematic realities. One is the gangster movie, elevated to cosmic status by the French new wave. The other is visual jazz and the accompanying dream linkages that have been similarly blazed, starting with Dennis Hopper so far as American films.

What you are open to determines what you can get, I suppose. What Lynch provides is a sort of post-post modern notion of film as sometimes centered in itself, with its own cosmologies and lives that always refer to other film notions and never to real ones. There is no fold of us as viewer, no acknowledgment of our world at all (except for the mysterious videos). Celestial madness.

I prepared for this by watching four bad Holmes movies in a row. How we detect and discover is what this is about and is so superior to what we normally encounter, you should watch it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The first time I watched this movie I enjoyed it but was left confused as to what was really going on. As a huge fan of Lynch I was expecting as much. So a few days later I watched it again and everything clicked and made perfect sense and seemed so obvious this time.

If you hated it the first time and found nothing interesting then you probably shouldn't watch it again and put yourself though the torture a second time. But if you feel how I did, watch it again and you'll enjoy it much more.

This movie does require a second viewing for a complete understanding of what's happening. In Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire you get what's going on the first time. Multiple viewings make the details much clearer but you don't leave confused like with Lost Highway.

Great story, the first part is truly one of the scariest things I've ever seen. I think one thing about this movie that is interesting is that almost all of the actors are playing roles that you've never seen them do before. And they do it very well. I was a little apprehensive about Pullman being the lead, as I know him from Spaceballs and Independence Day, but he is very good in this. You rarely get a bad performance in a Lynch movie.

My only criticism is that the movie is a little slow and long. Not in a bad way but I do find myself waiting for the end as opposed to some movies where I don't want them to end.

I started this film upon renting it one night at 11:00 PM. I finished at about 1 in the morning. I was so stunned and awestruck that I stayed up until 3 in the morning to watch it again. This is one of the most spell-binding movies I have ever seen. Each time I see it my theory of the plot thickens. What I love about the movie is that it leaves you with the option to fill in the blanks. You will keep asking what happened and why that happened, but that is what makes the movie so awesome. David Lynch's skewed opinion of reality is very inspiring and I feel that my reality has changed ever since I watched it. Having watched it 13 times I can pretty safely say that my theory of the plot is set, but I still love to ponder exactly why.