Lost Highway

David Lynch's Lost Highway was greeted not with a bang but with a whimper. Although many people found it difficult to follow or obtuse, it is surprisingly devoid of subplot or outside intrigue. The horror aspects are partly visceral but mainly psychological. Lynch relies upon the intelligence of the viewer, assuming that they have a sufficient grasp of film language to understand the implicit clues that unravel the plot. If you accept what is being shown at face value, the tale becomes simplistic. It is the denial of normality that gives the film its edge. There is absolutely no indication of when the film is set - the only hint is in Lynch's assertion that Lost Highway is a '21st Century' film.

The plot concerns itself with a couple, Fred and Renee Madison (Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette), who keep finding video tapes on their doorstep. This event is not in itself improbable, but the tapes slowly pry into their lives. What makes the tapes so sinister is that they are at once believable and yet unreal, as neither of the Madisons are aware that the filming is taking place. Then Fred finds a video of him murdering his wife and, convicted of her murder, ends up on death row. There, he inexplicably morphs into a young mechanic named Pete Dayton. When Pete is released, his and Fred's paths begin to cross in a surreal, suspenseful web of intrigue, orchestrated by a shady gangster boss named Dick Laurent (Robert Loggia)

If examined chronologically, the film seeks to confuse but has an inherent logic. When, right at the very beginning, Fred hears that 'Dick Laurent is dead', it is a message from himself in the future, despite the rigidly linear nature of the events. In fact all the main characters have a split identity - porn king Mr Eddie is Dick Laurent, Pete is Fred and Renee is porn star Alice. We focus on the Pete/Fred character because it is through his confused perspective that we view the film. But are things any less strange to Alice/Renee and Dick/Mr Eddie?

Mr Eddie is clearly the bad guy of the piece and a continuation of Lynch's tradition to feature sexually deranged psychopaths in the sinister opposite role. He is not dissimilar to Mr Reindeer in Wild At Heart, relishing in the control he has over women. Mr Reindeer enjoyed lingerie-clad topless women and the occasional massage, while the Mr Eddie prefers to be fellated in public by girls forced to strip at gunpoint. Not a nice chap. Musically, his theme is evocative of Touch of Evil (1958) or any of the seedier films of the 1950s.

Indeed, Lynch has pulled out all the stops in the soundtrack to Lost Highway. The director waited many years to use This Mortal Coil's 'Song To The Siren', and he puts it through its paces by treating it as a motif caught fleetingly throughout the film and used extensively at the climax. Responsible for the rest of the soundtrack are Badalamenti (who provides some truly screeching saxophones) ex-Magazine bass player Adamson, producer Trent Reznor (famed for his work with Nine Inch Nails) and Marilyn Manson. The metal-industrial nihilism of Rammstein adds an uncomfortable but overblown edge.

By all accounts Lost Highway was a very musical production and Lynch had spent time researching the music beforehand. When shooting, he could play the selected pieces through his earphones on each take, enabling him to capture and assess the scene's atmosphere instantly. The excellent sound is not just the result of the score of course - the film rumbles as only a Lynch film can, with moments of eerie quiet giving way to monumentally loud rushes of sound. If you see this in the cinema insist that they turn up the volume to ear bleeding levels and live with the consequences later.

Lost Highway is reminiscent in its style and ambiguity of Maya Deren's masterful experimental film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), of Alan Parker's Angel Heart (1987) in its portrayal of ambiguous characters and Michael Haneke's Funny Games (1997) for the manipulation of audience expectations, although none can really be cited as direct influences. This is a film that is well ahead of its time and, like Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart, it will be interesting to see which films and genres use the motifs that Lost Highway has developed.

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