::READERS REVIEWS::

Hang In There - The first half of this movie you are going to blame me for having recommended it. But then it makes a change, and entertains you. Yeah, David Lynch does that with all of his films.

Did I mention Patricia Arquette is topless?

Invest Yourself in This Film or Skip It - The collective work amassed by David Lynch prior to the making of Lost Highway is typically bizarre and aloof with characters who border on absurdity and unclear plotlines. However, no film with the possible exception of Eraserhead comes close to the cryptic narrative of Lost Highway. The storyline focuses on Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), a wealthy Los Angeles saxophonist married to the mysterious Renee (played by Patricia Arquette). Fred begins to suspect Renee's infidelity leading to her grisly murder of which Fred is charged, tried and sentenced to death. Shockingly, Fred disappears from his death row prison cell and Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty) takes his place leading to a seemingly unrelated storyline.

Without placing a single eye on this film, a prospective viewer must know that the majority of what you see in Lost Highway will seem bizarre, random and insane. From the underlying terror found in the Mystery Man in Black (played by Robert Blake) to the hot-tempered menace in Robert Loggia's performance as Mr. Eddy, the subject matter is incredibly murky and the content continually explicit. However, the film is meant to be viewed with serious analysis of the characters and the presentation of images. Although offsetting, many aspects of the film are very relevant no matter how random they seem and everything is symbolic. Close observation and repeat viewing are required to understand the film. If you watch Lost Highway, it is urgent that you invest yourself in the film and deciphering its meaning. Without doing so watching this movie utterly pointless as you will not understand it and all you'll take from it is the distasteful aspects of it.

As a guide to watching this film, one must realize that the overwhelming majority of what you see in this film is not reality but a meticulous fantasy world created by a disturbed murderer who has internal depravity and a possible evilness entwined in his nature. The characters in the film are representations of emotions and thoughts. Some these characters exist in reality while the legitimacy of others may be debatable. Take note that fire is representation of explosive anger and pay close attention to anything smoking. Examine the cinematography and view the slightest thing as something with a message. Nothing in this film is trivial. As a result, if you are not willing to invest time and brain power, don't buy this film. After watching it, I must say that I thought the presentation of the film was great but I was still disgusted by other aspects of it. Still, the time I invested in figuring out what this film means was a gratifying experience in which I was invited into the world of Fred Madison rather than having David Lynch spoon-feed me everything. In fact, David Lynch explains absolutely nothing to the viewer. It's up to you to follow the clues Lynch leaves in his directorial style.

All in all, I give the film three stars. The difficult nature of the film keeps me from giving it anything higher but the interactive aspects of the film are something I'm grateful for. Upon its release in 1997, Lost Highway was panned. This is interesting as David Lynch received an Oscar nomination, a Cannes Film Festival Award and revitalizing critical acclaim for Mulholland Drive, a film that has a similar narrative structure, just reversed. I also think that the Lynch's presentation of imagery from cinematography or editing was much better than Mulholland Drive. The Focus Feature DVD of the film is a bit disappointing as there are no special features included. For a film that cost me $14.99, I certainly expected more. At the very least, a nice theatrical trailer, director commentary or interviews would have been good.

"everything i want, i have.." - ok, one of my favorite movies... spare the plot details. basiclly THIS is the version to get... the focus features, universal release... the other one (with the blue tint vcover) is the canadian versian.. it is pan and scan... i bought it before, when it was the only option... this one is the way to go... only thing, there are no special features, and no booklet... inland empire has a little insert for lynch coffe...lol, and special features, as does the wild at heart, (i think its a reissue, with a cardboard case) and the second print of blue velvet... hope this helps some,.....another great film/(based off a comic) very similar, is called the maxx, there was a bootleg dvd t hat was made, because there is no dvd release, and the vhs goes for over a hundo. GREAT STUFF... check it out if you havent already, ... i dont think thatll ever be profesionally released, but still great to have... thoese bootlegs are even hard to find now...

"theres a man, in back of this place.... hes the one whos doing it!!"

-matt

Lost Highway not so good - The film quality is excellent and the DVD transfer didn't lose much. The actors are top notch, but the storyline is just weird and difficult to follow. I found the first half boring and was ready to pull the plug, but it got better in the second half. If there was a plot in there, I could not find it. If you are looking for an easy to follow, entertaining movie, Lost Highway is not the one for you.

Fantastic Movie! - I love this movie! There are twists and turns. It's probably one of my favorite Lynch movies!

LOST LOST HIGHWAY - This is an awful print of the film and not worth the purchase. I recommend the 2-disc version on region 2, a fine anamorphic print ,with a vibrant DTS track. David Lynch is the master of the surreal and if you want to experience it properly then check out the european print

Step right up. Make your choice. - Lost Highway is a movie that allows you to make a choice. Is it a Twilight Zone Movie in which you're dealing with soul transference & time travel. Could be. A faustian bargain? Are you dealing with the roving inner eye of an insane mind?
That was my choice & this review will reflect that choice.

The movie starts with a man & his wife whose house is being video taped from the inside. Is this being done by an outsider, evil spirit or is this the act of a sinister plan inside the home? I say inside job. If you're messed up enough to shoot video of your place to deceive either yourself or your mate, putting it in an enevelope & leaving it outside is no biggee.

What a lovely relationship they have too. He's freaked out & she's subservient enough but also obviously has the quiet confidence to plan her way through her troubles. Enter now, the best character of the movie only listed as "mystery man", Robert Blake. He's never gone anywhere he states, that he wasn't invited. Sounds like an evil spirit all right & remember they've talked before. In my book they've talked many times, like each night as Pullman roves the corridors of his insane & escape proof mind.

You get a murder, an arrest & a conviction. So neat & tidy plus added stress on an already bent mind. What happens in Pullman's cell at night is the key to whether you go towards Twilight Zone or insanity. Is Bill Pullman & Balthazar Getty the same man. Is Pullman actually in prison or is he in the prison for the criminally insane with a real body played by Getty.

I chose Balthazar Getty as the real & very, very, sick, person in this movie. Pullman is Getty's uber-human. Pullman is what Getty wants to be. Not an auto mechanic that lives at home with mommie & daddie, BTW- great cameo's here on ma & pa, but a musician in a nice apartment with a super hot lady that belongs to one of the BIG people in his little man's world. I mean Getty covets everything he perceives as being above his station in life. The car, the women & in the end the will to be violent to obtain his desires.

Now the lady & thank you Mr. Lynch for Patricia. A perfect fit for this role which I believe you see in the show Bound. This girl wants the money & there is nothing she won't do to get it. Attracted to power like a drunk to alcohol she has finally realized that if she has the money she can be the power, not bask in someone else's. Now look at how they meet. She did sorta make the pick herself. She picked that punk as soon as she saw he couldn't take his eyes off her while she was still in the car. Lamb to the slaughter she thinks, but this isn't Body Heat even though Patricia puts out tons of that.

Actually I believe the movie is pretty straight forward once you decide if your watching Rod Serling's Twilight Zone or if your seeing inside the mind of a little man with big dreams that went terribly awry & landed him in the prison we can't escape, our own minds.

The men's dreams are trashed. The woman's dreams are killed. Even the Big Boss is pancaked out of his dream in the desert. The only winner here is "Mystery Man" who never goes where he's not invited. Where does Mystery Man come from & where does he go to? Whose call does he answer? Isn't it to be expected that as the police close in for the capture, no O J here, Mr. Getty begins to revert back to his other identity. Sorta like Psycho without the maternal leanings so no insipid weakness.

I give the movie 5 stars for entertainment value as you can get sucked in here and wake up 2 hr's later thinking only 25 min's passed. Lot's of misdirection.
I give Patricia anything she wants. I'll be Getty for her.
The rest of the cast gets 4 stars except Blake who gets 5.
Movie rating is 4 1/2 stars.
A nice trip down the lost highway of my mind.

Private rant here: Where the H was the media circus that would of surrounded Getty's release from prison. Seems Hollywood either toons the Warden, the guards, the convicts, the media or the whole system. This show used the other method which is- just don't show it.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is in fact no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this beautifully remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film boasts one of the greatest soundtracks ever compiled, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, as well as killer cuts from David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, and others. NIN's Trent Reznor is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off after the disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just witnessed. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from!

The only problem with this ever-popular "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theory is that is simply doesn't hold up under even the slightest bit of good honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and fogotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is meant to be understood as actually happening, as opposed to being a dream or delusion in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there IS a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream scene is CLEARLY a dream sequnce - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback (there are also some important flashback sequences in this film).

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s "The Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Peter Dayton, a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head.

Finally, the final third of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that it takes place in another realm - the realm from which the otherworldly MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on.

But getting back to LH, the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which detonates into existence.

Feeling confused yet? You probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is in fact no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this beautifully remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film boasts one of the greatest soundtracks ever compiled, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, as well as killer cuts from David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, and others. NIN's Trent Reznor is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off after the disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just witnessed. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from!

The only problem with this ever-popular "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theory is that is simply doesn't hold up under even the slightest bit of good honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and fogotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is meant to be understood as actually happening, as opposed to being a dream or delusion in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there IS a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream scene is CLEARLY a dream sequnce - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback (there are also some important flashback sequences in this film).

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s "The Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Peter Dayton, a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head.

Finally, the final third of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that it takes place in another realm - the realm from which the otherworldly MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on.

But getting back to LH, the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which detonates into existence.

Feeling confused yet? You probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is in fact no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this beautifully remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film boasts one of the greatest soundtracks ever made, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, and killer cuts from David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, and others. The rock songs and the orchestral score weave in and out of each other seamlessly throughout. NIN's Trent Reznor, who also produced the NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack, is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off following the disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just saw. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from.

The only problem with this ever-popular "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theory is that is doesn't hold up under even the slightest bit of good honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred goes ape and murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left in manilla envelopes on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and fogotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is meant to be understood as actually happening, as opposed to being dreams or delusions in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there IS a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream is CLEARLY a dream - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see that this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback. And again, there are also some important flashback sequences in this film, but all are clearly identifiable as flashbacks.

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s frightening "Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Peter Dayton, a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head. He is a classic Devil who cuts Faustian deals with any man or woman foolish or desperate enough to invite him into their lives.

Lastly, the final act of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that it takes place in an otherworldly realm - the realm from which the demonic MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on.

But getting back to LH, the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch clearly illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which impossibly detonates into existence.

Feeling confused yet? You probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is in fact no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this beautifully remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film boasts one of the greatest soundtracks ever made, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, and killer cuts from David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, and others. The rock songs and the orchestral score weave in and out of each other seamlessly throughout. NIN's Trent Reznor, who also produced the NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack, is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off following the disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just saw. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from.

The only problem with this ever-popular "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theory is that is doesn't hold up under even the slightest bit of good honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred goes ape and murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left in manilla envelopes on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and fogotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is meant to be understood as actually happening, as opposed to being dreams or delusions in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there IS a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream is CLEARLY a dream - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see that this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback. And again, there are also some important flashback sequences in this film, but all are clearly identifiable as flashbacks.

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s frightening "Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty), a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head. He is a classic Devil who cuts Faustian deals with any man or woman foolish or desperate enough to invite him into their lives.

Lastly, the final act of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that it takes place in an otherworldly realm - the realm from which the demonic MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on.

But getting back to LH, the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch clearly illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which impossibly detonates into existence.

Feeling confused yet? You probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this gorgeously remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film boasts one of the greatest soundtracks I've ever heard, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, and killer cuts from David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, and others. The rock songs and the orchestral score weave in and out of each other seamlessly throughout. NIN's Trent Reznor, who also produced the outrageous NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack, is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off following the disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just saw. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from.

The only problem with this ever-popular "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theory is that is doesn't hold up under even the slightest bit of good honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred goes ape and murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left in manilla envelopes on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and fogotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is meant to be understood as actually happening, as opposed to being dreams or delusions in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there IS a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream is CLEARLY a dream - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see that this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback. And again, there are also some important flashback sequences in this film, but all are clearly identifiable as flashbacks.

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s frightening "Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty), a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head. He is a classic Devil who cuts Faustian deals with any man or woman foolish or desperate enough to invite him into their lives.

Lastly, the final act of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that it takes place in an otherworldly realm - the realm from which the demonic MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on.

But getting back to LH, the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch clearly illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which impossibly detonates into existence.

Feeling confused yet? You probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this gorgeously remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film boasts one of the greatest soundtracks I've ever heard, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, and killer cuts from David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Lou Reed, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, and others. The rock songs and the orchestral score weave in and out of each other seamlessly throughout. NIN's Trent Reznor, who also produced the outrageous NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack, is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off following the disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just saw. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from.

The only problem with this ever-popular "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theory is that is doesn't hold up under even the slightest bit of good honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred goes ape and murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left in manilla envelopes on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and forgotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is actually happening, as opposed to being dreams or delusions in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there is a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream is clearly a dream - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see that this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback. And again, there are also some important flashback sequences in this film - in fact, the dream sequence is recounted as a flashback - but all are clearly identifiable as flashbacks.

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s frightening "Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty), a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head. He is also responsible for the trio of doppelgangers - doubles - who we meet in the film (Fred, his wife, and the villainous Dick Laurent all have doppelgangers).

To sum him up, MM is a classic variation on The Devil archetype who cuts Faustian deals with any man or woman foolish or desperate enough to invite him into their lives. Fred, Renee, and Dick are three such individuals, and understanding this point, this strange and supernatural concept, is central to understanding the overarching story of LOST HIGHWAY.

And lastly, the final act of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that it takes place in an otherworldly place outside the realm of reality - the very place from which the demonic MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on. Pete Dayton and Alice (Renee's doppelganger) cross over into this realm when they drive out into the desert along the titular lost highway.

But getting back to LH, the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch clearly illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which impossibly detonates into existence. We only return to reality at the tail end of the film, when Fred's unnamed doppelganger returns to his former home and is chased off by the caravan of police cruisers.

Feeling confused yet? That's OK - you probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this gorgeously remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film boasts one of the greatest soundtracks I've ever heard, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, and killer cuts from David Bowie ("I'm Deranged"), Nine Inch Nails ("The Perfect Drug"), Lou Reed ("This Magic Moment"), Smashing Pumpkins ("Eye"), Marilyn Manson ("I Put a Spell On You"), and others. The rock songs and the orchestral score weave in and out of each other seamlessly throughout. NIN's Trent Reznor, who also produced the outrageous NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack, is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off following the all-around disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just saw. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from.

Others go even further off the deep end and argue that the entire film - not just the final two-thirds - take place inside the head of (an apparently unidentified) madman. The obvious problem with this uber-reductionist theory is that it completely reduces this complex and mysterious film to nothing more than a series of random and inane delusions. To me, this latter interpretation is purely ludicrous.

At any rate, the biggest problem with these "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theories - especially the first one I mentioned - is that they just don't hold up under honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred goes ape and murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left in manilla envelopes on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and forgotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is actually happening, as opposed to being dreams or delusions in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there is a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream is clearly a dream - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see that this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback. And again, there are also some important flashback sequences in this film - in fact, the dream sequence is recounted as a flashback - but all are clearly identifiable as flashbacks.

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s frightening "Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty), a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head. He is also responsible for the trio of doppelgangers - doubles - who we meet in the film (Fred, his wife, and the villainous Dick Laurent all have doppelgangers).

To sum him up, MM is a classic variation on The Devil archetype who cuts Faustian deals with any man or woman foolish or desperate enough to invite him into their lives. Fred, Renee, and Dick are three such individuals, and understanding this point, this strange and supernatural concept, is central to understanding the overarching story of LOST HIGHWAY.

And lastly, the final act of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that it takes place in an otherworldly place outside the realm of reality - the very place from which the demonic MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on. Pete Dayton and Alice (Renee's doppelganger) cross over into this realm when they drive out into the desert along the titular lost highway.

But getting back to LH, the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch clearly illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which impossibly detonates into existence. We only return to reality at the tail end of the film, when Fred's unnamed doppelganger returns to his former home and is chased off by the caravan of police cruisers.

Feeling confused yet? That's OK - you probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this gorgeously remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film's soundtrack is one of the best I've ever heard, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, and killer cuts from David Bowie ("I'm Deranged"), Nine Inch Nails ("The Perfect Drug"), Lou Reed ("This Magic Moment"), Smashing Pumpkins ("Eye"), Marilyn Manson ("I Put a Spell On You"), and others. The rock songs and the orchestral score weave in and out of each other seamlessly throughout. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, who also produced the outrageous NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack, is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off following the all-around disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just saw. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from.

Others go even further off the deep end and argue that the entire film - not just the final two-thirds - take place inside the head of (an apparently unidentified) madman. The obvious problem with this uber-reductionist theory is that it completely reduces this complex and mysterious film to nothing more than a series of random and inane delusions. To me, this latter interpretation is purely ludicrous.

At any rate, the biggest problem with these "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theories - especially the first one I mentioned - is that they just don't hold up under honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred goes ape and murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left in manilla envelopes on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and forgotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is actually happening, as opposed to being dreams or delusions in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there is a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream is clearly a dream - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see that this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback. And again, there are also some important flashback sequences in this film - in fact, the dream sequence is recounted as a flashback - but all are clearly identifiable as flashbacks.

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s frightening "Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty), a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head. He is also responsible for the trio of doppelgangers - doubles - who we meet in the film (Fred, his wife, and the villainous Dick Laurent all have doppelgangers).

To sum him up, MM is a classic variation on The Devil archetype who cuts Faustian deals with any man or woman foolish or desperate enough to invite him into their lives. Fred, Renee, and Dick are three such individuals, and understanding this point, this strange and supernatural concept, is central to understanding the overarching story of LOST HIGHWAY.

And lastly, the final act of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that it takes place in an otherworldly place outside the realm of reality - the very place from which the demonic MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on. Pete Dayton and Alice (Renee's doppelganger) cross over into this realm when they drive out into the desert along the titular lost highway.

But getting back to LH, the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch clearly illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which impossibly detonates into existence. We only return to reality at the tail end of the film, when Fred's unnamed doppelganger returns to his former home and is chased off by the caravan of police cruisers.

Feeling confused yet? That's OK - you probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.

Step right up. Make your choice. - Lost Highway is a movie that allows you to make a choice. Is it a Twilight Zone Movie in which you're dealing with soul transference & time travel. Could be. A faustian bargain? Are you dealing with the roving inner eye of an insane mind?
That was my choice & this review will reflect that choice.

The movie starts with a man & his wife whose house is being video taped from the inside. Is this being done by an outsider, evil spirit or is this the act of a sinister plan inside the home? I say inside job. If you're messed up enough to shoot video of your place to deceive either yourself or your mate, putting it in an envelope & leaving it outside is no biggee.

What a lovely relationship they have too. He's freaked out & she's subservient enough but also obviously has the quiet confidence to plan her way through her troubles. Enter now, the best character of the movie only listed as "mystery man", Robert Blake. He's never gone anywhere he states, that he wasn't invited. Sounds like an evil spirit all right & remember they've talked before. In my book they've talked many times, like each night as Pullman roves the corridors of his insane & escape proof mind.

You get a murder, an arrest & a conviction. So neat & tidy plus added stress on an already bent mind. What happens in Pullman's cell at night is the key to whether you go towards Twilight Zone or insanity. Is Bill Pullman & Balthazar Getty the same man. Is Pullman actually in prison or is he in the prison for the criminally insane with a real body played by Getty.

I chose Balthazar Getty as the real & very, very, sick, person in this movie. Pullman is Getty's uber-human. Pullman is what Getty wants to be. Not an auto mechanic that lives at home with mommie & daddie, BTW- great cameo's here on ma & pa, but a musician in a nice apartment with a super hot lady that belongs to one of the BIG people in his little man's world. I mean Getty covets everything he perceives as being above his station in life. The car, the women & in the end the will to be violent to obtain his desires.

Now the lady & thank you Mr. Lynch for Patricia. A perfect fit for this role which I believe you see in the show Bound. This girl wants the money & there is nothing she won't do to get it. Attracted to power like a drunk to alcohol she has finally realized that if she has the money she can be the power, not bask in someone else's. Now look at how they meet. She did sorta make the pick herself. She picked that punk as soon as she saw he couldn't take his eyes off her while she was still in the car. Lamb to the slaughter she thinks, but this isn't Body Heat even though Patricia puts out tons of that.

Actually I believe the movie is pretty straight forward once you decide if your watching Rod Serling's Twilight Zone or if your seeing inside the mind of a little man with big dreams that went terribly awry & landed him in the prison we can't escape, our own minds.

The men's dreams are trashed. The woman's dreams are killed. Even the Big Boss is pancaked out of his dream in the desert. The only winner here is "Mystery Man" who never goes where he's not invited. Where does Mystery Man come from & where does he go to? Whose call does he answer? Isn't it to be expected that as the police close in for the capture, no O J here, Mr. Getty begins to revert back to his other identity. Sorta like Psycho without the maternal leanings so no insipid weakness.

I give the movie 5 stars for entertainment value as you can get sucked in here and wake up 2 hr's later thinking only 25 min's passed. Lot's of misdirection.
I give Patricia anything she wants. I'll be Getty for her.
The rest of the cast gets 4 stars except Blake who gets 5.
Movie rating is 4 1/2 stars.
A nice trip down the lost highway of my mind.

Private rant here: Where the H was the media circus that would of surrounded Getty's release from prison. Seems Hollywood either toons the Warden, the guards, the convicts, the media or the whole system. This show used the other method which is- just don't show it.

"No Such Thing as a Bad Coincidence" (Understanding LOST HIGHWAY) - Before getting into the actual review, I'd like to clarify that Amazon's product Description for this item is incorrect, in that there is no "10-part multi-angle interview with David Lynch". In fact, there is no interview at all, and the only real negative comment I have about this gorgeously remastered FOCUS edition is that there are no interesting special features.

I also want to mention that this film's soundtrack is one of the best I've ever heard, featuring one of Angelo Badalamenti's most varied and evocative scores, and killer cuts from David Bowie ("I'm Deranged"), Nine Inch Nails ("The Perfect Drug"), Lou Reed ("This Magic Moment"), Smashing Pumpkins ("Eye"), Marilyn Manson ("I Put a Spell On You"), and others. The rock songs and the orchestral score weave in and out of each other seamlessly throughout. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, who also produced the outrageous NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack, is the evil mastermind behind this great album.

OK, with all that out of the way...

LOST HIGHWAY was David Lynch's 1997 return to feature films after taking a few years off following the all-around disastrous reception of 1993's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME. Interestingly enough, LH is even more relentlessly surreal and initially impenetrable than FIRE WALK WITH ME, and also deals with several of the same disturbing obsessions, such as divided personas, sexual perversion, brutal murder, and malignant, unknowable entities from other dimensions. Light stuff, right? Wrong.

The first time you see this film, you're likely to walk (or perhaps stagger) away without much of a clue as to what you just saw. But if you feel drawn to return this film, somehow feeling that there was something deeply compelling beneath the surface that you weren't quite able to grasp, you will soon find yourself formulating theories with every subsequent viewing.

The most popular interpretation of LH is that the main character, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), is essentially psychotic, and that he is simply imagining a good deal of what we see in the film. The idea behind this theory is that Fred was arrested for brutally murdering and dismembering his wife, and now sits in his lonely prison cell, obsessively concocting his own desperately deluded version of what happened. Fred can't face up to his own bleak and twisted reality, so he imagines he is another person with another life altogether. Unfortunately, Fred's subconscious won't let him indulge in his fantasies indefinitely, and his imaginings end up turning inward on themselves into a nightmare worse than the actual reality he is fleeing from.

Others go even further off the deep end and argue that the entire film - not just the final two-thirds - take place inside the head of (an apparently unidentified) madman. The obvious problem with this uber-reductionist theory is that it completely reduces this complex and mysterious film to nothing more than a series of random and inane delusions. To me, this latter interpretation is purely ludicrous.

At any rate, the biggest problem with these "Fred-was-imagining-it-all" theories - especially the first one I mentioned - is that they just don't hold up under honest scrutiny. And here's why.

The main problem is that a number of the most important plot threads in the film are introduced BEFORE Fred goes ape and murders his wife, including: a trio of increasingly terrifying and intrusive video tapes mysteriously left in manilla envelopes on the Madisons' front door; a demonic-looking fellow who can be in two places at once and who invades the Madisons' home on the night of the murder; and the all-important question of who assisted Fred in killing his wife (because the murder was video-taped, there had to be an accomplice, presumably the person who sent the three aforementioned video cassette tapes).

So. If we are to buy into the idea that Fred is imagining everything we see in LOST HIGHWAY after his incarceration, we must also buy into the idea that the tapes and the Mystery Man and the identity of Fred's accomplice are all tantalizing mysteries which were included simply to be discarded and forgotten.

If that's your thing, then be my guest. But if you actually want to understand what this staggeringly complex and disturbing film is all about, I'll give you a few choice clues and a strong recommendation that you simply watch the film again with some of my comments in mind.

Everyone strapped in and ready? Good - let's ride.

The most important thing to understand about this film is that everything we see in the film is actually happening, as opposed to being dreams or delusions in Fred's mind. Now don't get me wrong - there is a dream sequence in the film, and it is one of the most important scenes in the film. However, my point is that the dream is clearly a dream - Fred is lying in bed and recounting a dream he had to his wife. And if you go back and watch Lynch's other films, you'll see that this is always the case - if a character is dreaming or having a flashback, it is made perfectly CLEAR that the character is dreaming or having a flashback. And again, there are also some important flashback sequences in this film - in fact, the dream sequence is recounted as a flashback - but all are clearly identifiable as flashbacks.

Once you can overcome this hurdle - and believe me, it is tempting to succumb to the idea Fred is simply imagining most of the film - you are officially on the right track to understanding LOST HIGHWAY.

Next up: the uber-creepy Mystery Man (played by Robert Blake) is NOT a figment of Fred's purportedly deranged imagination. Instead, the MM is best described as being an otherworldly demonic entity, not unlike characters we've seen in other David Lynch productions, such as TWIN PEAKS's Killer BOB, MULHOLLAND DR.'s frightening "Bum behind Winkie's", INLAND EMPIRE's The Phantom, and so on.

The MM is the film's supernatural element, and he is responsible for the transformation of Fred Madison into Pete Dayton (played by Balthazar Getty), a transformation otherwise written off as being a mere delusion in Fred's head. He is also responsible for the trio of doppelgangers, or doubles, whom we meet in the film ("Mr. Eddy", "Alice Wakefield", and Fred's unnamed twin).

To sum him up, MM is a classic variation on The Devil archetype who cuts Faustian deals with any man or woman foolish or desperate enough to invite him into their lives. Fred, Renee, and Dick are three such individuals, and understanding this plot-point is central to understanding the overarching story of LOST HIGHWAY.

Lastly, the final act of the film becomes more comprehensible when you bear in mind that most of it takes place in an otherworldly place outside the realm of reality - the very place from which the demonic MM comes from. This "other place" is also something we've seen in so many of Lynch's previous films, including ERASERHEAD (the Singing Lady's world inside Henry's radiator), TWIN PEAKS (the Black and White Lodges), MULHOLLAND DR. (Club Silencio), and so on. Pete Dayton and Alice (Renee's doppelganger) cross over into this realm when they drive out into the desert along the titular lost highway.

So the final third of the film takes place in one of these extra-dimensional zones, where the laws of space and time as we know them do not necessarily apply. Lynch clearly illustrates this point by making the MM's headquarters a backwards-exploding cabin which impossibly detonates into existence. We only return to reality at the tail end of the film, when Fred's unnamed doppelganger returns to his former home and is chased off by the caravan of police cruisers.

Feeling confused yet? That's OK - you probably should be. But next time you watch this film, just think about some of the ideas I've presented here, and see if the film doesn't start making a little more sense.

If not, you can always just throw your hands up and say that LH is just an absurdly random and unecessarily convoluted look into the whacked-out mind of an apparent madman who apparently killed his wife. Or something like that.

Either way...enjoy.