Lost Highway

Masterpiece.  Rewatch after rewatch this film never gets old. Its style and atmosphere is unmatched, perfect music, perfect set locations and perfect influential storytelling. I could endlessly list each thing that works perfectly for me, from start to end I am constantly glued. It’s eerie and creepy, shocking and erotic, baffling and odd - and to me perfect and flawless. Main performances from Patrica Arquette’s duel role as Renee/Alice is captivating from both sides. Bill Pullman perfectly portrays Fred’s descent from normality to derangement and guilt. Balthazar Getty’s role as Pete acts as a good viewpoint, equally confused as the audience. However it’s undeniable that Roberts Blake steals every second on screen as the mystery man, with limited time on screen, acting not as a character but a force of nature itself. David Lynch’s work is consistently masterful and distinct, his impact on media as a whole is unquestionable, this film for me being the peak of his filmmaking ability. Many of his work being equally great and popular this film is particularly my vibe. Also inspiring my favourite game, Silent Hill 2. The explored themes of guilt, psychological horror, hallucinogenic stories and the actions committed by the two protagonist. It’s certainly not for everyone, David Lynch’s films are famous for being confusing and weird, that doesn’t stop them from being famously great either. This film can be overly explicit to some (I argue it’s fitting for the story and not without reason) and of course baffling. I was so lost after watching it for the first time but I knew that I didn’t need the film explained to me. I think it’s amazing to find your own meaning and conclusions with such seemingly absurd stuff. Some of it I still don’t get today, but hope to understand in the future.  Definitely a head scratcher but thankfully scratches an itch of what I love in a movie… * The rest of the review will just be my interpretation of the film.* SPOILERS Making your own understandings is repeatedly shown in the film. Fred saying “I like to remember things my own way” and the whole film from my understanding as well as watching interviews from the great David Lynch inspired by the ‘O.J Simpson trial’ and is about psychotic fugue.  psychotic fugue- ‘a rare, temporary state where a person forgets their identity and personal past, and abruptly travels or wanders away from their home or workplace.’ Fred is a middle aged insecure jazz player, suspecting his wife Renee of cheating, building up to a mental breakdown causing him to murder his wife. After his death sentencing, in Fred’s cell his mind breaks again. The “fantasy life” he creates from his broken mind acts as an escape of guilt. His mind’s gradually remembering the events turns this ‘fantasy’ into a horrifying and confusing nightmare.  His transformation into ‘Pete’ is Fred longing to be younger, more masculine being a mechanist rather than a musician, more innocent and confident / being better in bed - a manifestation of his insecurity and weak ego. But more and more Fred’s life seeps into Pete’s, as Dick Laurent (victim of Fred who he thought Renee was cheating on him, a reminder of his actions and manifestation of Fred’s anger) and the mystery man push themselves further into Pete’s life. ‘Alice’ is Fred’s manifestation of his wife Renee, more confident and sexual, she represents Fred’s repressed sexual insecurity, desires, and misogynistic fears. His worries of Renee cheating on him manifests into ‘Pete’ being crazily good in bed and cheating on his girlfriend. Also making Alice a sex worker and a “cheat” he thought his wife to be. Although this all comes crushing down as Fred’s reality seep through again, Alice reminding him that this reality as Pete is fake, whispering *“you’ll* never have me”  *before leaving the film with Pete entirely and dragging Fred back into the film to face finally face the mystery man…* The mystery man is excellently unsettling. The devil on the shoulder of Fred’s mind, embodying all of Fred’s evil desires in his subconscious thoughts. Not letting him stay in the ‘fantasy’ he made but pulling him back into the nightmarish reality. Making him kill Dick Laurent as a form of ‘revenge’ of which his mind desires, yet recording Fred, showing the definitive truth of his actions through tape recordings earlier in the film. The mystery man is a physical manifestation of Fred’s evil - as he says, “You invited me. It's not my habit to go where I'm not wanted” keeping Fred on the lost highway. The lost highway itself is a form of mental purgatory. The film beginning and ending on that never ending dark highway, it acts as a mental prison beside the physical one Fred stays in. At the end of the film, where I believe Fred is being electrocuted to death as was he sentenced to, it happens in his car on the highway. Physically he may be released, but his mind keeps him in torment for what he’s done. Him being the one to tell himself “Dick Laurent is dead” which he hears at the start of the film hinting at a loop, a hell he will continue to repeat.  These are my own conclusion from rewatches which I’m sure to expand or change in the future. I didn’t mean for this review to turn into an essay, but Lost Highway remains my favourite film of all time currently, as you can surely tell…