Lost Highway (1997)
This challenges the usual way of construction a movie in terms of weird acting, circular narrative, things that seemingly make little logical sense and switching main character half way. I can totally understand if many people will turn this off halfway through.
The very stiff unnatural acting threw me off at first. I know Lynch is capable of getting very convincing performances from actors, so there must be deliberate. I am guessing it relates to what Fred says about him wanting to remember things like he wants to, not how they actually happened. Whether that is meant to be interpreted as everything is just Fred psychotic nightmare I have no idea, but it successfully gives the first a very creepy and unsettling atmosphere.
What held it for me was a fascination on “what the hell is going on”. Movies where unexplained weird stuff just happens balances on a knifes edge between urging you to give up or keep watching to see what happens next. It fell in the latter for me. I was constantly surprised by the shift and turns and unexpected plot developments. Like when Mr. Eddy takes Pete on a drive, it is kinda frames as some gangster stuff is going to happen. It sort of does, but I definitely didn’t expect it to be in the form of violent lesson in tailgating and speed limits. Later it suddenly becomes quite gory when a man gets his head split by a coffee table and then Rammstein starts playing!
It seems to me like some Lynch fans love to dissect and analyze his films into pieces to try and extract hidden meanings from them. There are plenty of “explained” type videos on Youtube and the Wikipedia article is interesting to read, but I mostly agree with Lynch in that there are no correct interpretation of his films and they should be watched and see where intuition takes you. This film explored similar territory as Mulholland Drive with memory loss and dreams mixed with reality. I do think Mulholland Drive is more accessible and I liked that more, because while Lost Highway was fascinating with all the weird creepy stuff that happens and how it is impossible to know where it goes next, it is emotional cold. I cannot relate or resonate to it in any personal way.
Rating: 3.5