Strade perdute

This was the first time I was in anticipation of the release of a David Lynch film. Having only discovered his movies (and Twin Peaks) in the period of 1992-1997. I became a huge fan, owning several films on video as well as the complete Twin Peaks series.

I was not disappointed with Lost Highway. A film that left me totally stunned. A film that I did not want to end, in the hope that I could figure out what was going on. A film that left some scenes imprinted on my brain like a tattoo. A film that is a dream.

This film is what dreams are. There are times when you feel you control the dream, and times where you feel it escapes you. Slow and rapid events. Images that don't make sense. Fantasy. Horror. Surrealism. Symbolism. All part of a long dream, that I doubt anyone can decipher, including Mr Lynch.

Seeing this film for the second time with a person who truly did not "get it" (though I thank her for her patience to watch the whole film), made realise that there are two kinds of people in this world. I love this film. I can't wait to watch it again.

I'm not going into the plotline here because I'm limited to 1000 words. I don't think I can wrap up the plot that space.

I'm a recent inductee into the strange and twisted world of David Lynch. It all started when I caught a rerun of "Twin Peaks" on a low-budget digital satellite channel. Since then I've been hooked, and have had fun with cult films and filmmakers since.

Lost Highway is, as descried by Lynch, a new twist on film-noir. And only Lynch could put a twist like this on a classic genre. People keep wanting to draw comparisons to other films, saying: "Well, it's not Blue Velvet" or "It's not Mulholland Dr,"...they're right. It's Lost Highway, a unique and twisted foray down a dark highway that may or may not be entirely metaphorical...or metaphysical.

One of the things that I've noticed about David Lynch--and what probably inspires much of the hatred non-Lynch fans have towards his work--is that he doesn't explain everything. He lays it out, says "Here's my story. What do YOU make of it?" It's an incredible artistic attitude, much like viewing a Dali painting as opposed to a Da Vinci, and not for everyone's tastes.

Lost Highway is open to many interpretations, as are most of Lynch's works. Are we in our world, and being invaded by some outside force? Are we in a world we don't know we're in? Are we in Hell? What would you do if this happened to you? Maybe we are all someone else, really.

This film is at the same time allegorical, philosophical, incomprehensible, and satirical. It warps understood movie conventions, and is always pulling the unexpected.

All that praise aside, it is NOT the best of Lynch's work. One would have to be a fan to enjoy this, and should establish that fanhood with his better works, like Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, or "Twin Peaks."

If one has a set standard of how movies should be, an A-B-C pattern, stay away. But if it's originality, unanswered questions, and a break from standard Hollywood convention, go full ahead.

In my humble opinion, it's better than Wild at Heart and Dune, but not most of Lynch's rest. It is definitely an experience, but not one everybody will enjoy.

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.

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/

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.