ANOMALY //>

My Favourite Films of ALL TIME! #1Lost Highway [1997]
Directed By: David Lynch
Starring: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette

"Dick Laurent is dead"

I've been into David Lynch for years. I think i may have been the only kid in high school who actually knew who the guy was. I've always been that way though, really diverse in my taste of things. And i mean.....diiiiverse. For every Britney Spears song i loved, i loved a Marilyn Manson song. For every teen high school movie i loved, i loved an indie noir [i spelled that right, right? lol] flick. That's where Lynch comes in. He fits PERFECTLY into my weird side, always has.
I've enjoyed all his movies, but it's Lost Highway that's stuck out for me the most over the years.

I'm not sure HOW to describe the storyline to you guys. It's not the most......linear written movie [as usual with Lynch]. Basically, we follow 2 different story lines that later merge together into one big......err.......CLUSTER FUCK. The first story we follow is of a jazz saxophone nightclub player named Fred [Bill Pullman], who also has a girlfriend named Renee [Patricia Arquette]. They receive 2 messages over the course of a couple days. The first is an intercom message by someone who says "Dick Laurent is dead", the other message is a package that arrives at their front door step. Inside this package is a video tape, and this video contains footage of their house. Over the next few days they receive more video tapes, each one showing more and more of their home, the INSIDE of their home, and lastly, Fred and Renee sleeping in bed. YES, it's CREEPY AS FUCK. One night, Fred runs into a "mystery man" who he finds out is Dick Laurent. Soon enough, another video tape arrives, and this time it features footage of FRED killing his wife RENEE!!!!!..........Fred freaks out, gets arrested for her murder and is sent to prison.

Weird enough?.......it gets stranger.....

One day the guards go to check up on Fred in his cell, but..........the man in the cell isn't Fred anymore, it's a guy named Pete!!!! [Balthazar Getty]. Confused and weirded out, Pete is released from prison and is sent on his merry way. One day Pete meets Alice [also played by Patricia Arquette], she's the mistress of a crime honcho named Mr. Eddy. Pete and Alice become chummy [eg. they have loads of sex] and eventually they find themselves trying to get together some cash so they can run away together. What happens after that is a serious case of mixed identities [Patricia is 2 people for fucks sake!], murder, sex, and a whole mix of events that all comes to a climax at a cabin in the middle of the desert.As you can see, it's a heavy story with twists and turns and a whole lot of shit that makes ZERO sense. Parts of it i could follow, other parts i couldn't. What i took from the movie though, was that it had an underlying theme about IDENTITY in it. WHY that theme was chosen for the movie i don't know, and whether i'm right about what this movie is about is another thing all together. That's the beauty of Lynch though. He makes you think, and most of the time, you never get the full picture.

Visually, the movie is very dark in tone. Signature dark hallways, red curtains and eerie atmosphere are provided by the bucket load in this movie. There is some serious creepy imagery as well.
Another great part of the film is the soundtrack! Produced by Lynch and Trent Reznor [from Nine Inch Nails], it features music from Ramstein, David Bowie, Marilyn Manson and Smashing Pumpkins. AWESOME!

Is this movie for everyone? certainly not. And out of all of Lynch's films, i don't think this one is his most accessible at all! But, if you're a little patient, open minded, and interested in something that's dark, complex, and over sexed! then you may get something out of this movie. It's amazing how Lynch has the ability to create films that can make very little sense, but can still captivate you enough to sit and watch his mind unfold in front of you.

There's an eerie and sexy feel to this film that just DOES it for me. It's always a toss up between Lost Highway and Muholland Drive when i think about what my favourite Lynch movie is. Overall, Lost Highway's tone and characters leave me feeling a lot more unsettled and curious about what it is that i'm watching. With Lost Highway, you don't know WHAT'S around that creepy dark door at the end of the hallway, and you can't wait to find out.