Lost Highway ****
- (Regie: David Lynch; Met: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette,
Balthazar Ghetty)
- If you see only one movie this year PLEASE let it be David
Lynch's latest masterpiece of the macabre Lost Highway, a film so
seriously disturbed it makes the grim urban frightscape lof David
Fincher's Se7ven look like a carefree trip to la-la-land. Penned
in colaboration with Wild At Heart-scribe Barry Gifford (author of
notable novels like Night People and Sailor's Holiday), Lost
Highway is a perfect summation of the Lynch universe, a catalogue
of scares, symbols and strange sounds.
- The premise of this psychological "road movie" is not exactly
what you would describe as classic plotting. Summarizing seems an
impossible task but we'll give it a try anyway: Bill Pullman plays
the seriously paranoid jazz-musician Fred Madison who suspects his
wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) of all sorts of unsavoury business
(including - we later find out - snuff movies, bondage, porno,
drugs and the occasional homicide). Fred's paranoia only increases
to exponential value when he starts receiving strange
video-messages from an unknown intruder who has been busy
documenting every nook and corner of Fred's bedroom. The fact that
an equally unknown weirdo is whispering cryptic jibberish into
Fred's intercom like "Dick Laurent is dead" doesn't help much
either. Since this is L.A. there's nothing else to do but call the
cops, sit back and wait. In timeworn cop-tradition L.A.'s finest
dismiss Fred's complaints as paranoid delusions (which, in fact,
they are). Things start to go REALLY bad when Fred meets a
mysterious stranger (another one) at a party who tells him that
he's actually in Fred's house NOW, as they speak. No one person
can be in two different places at the same time, right? Wrong. The
"mystery man" hands Fred a cellular phone, connecting him to the
perpetrator in his house who is none other than ...the "mystery
man" himself. Sounds confusing? So it is.
- But be forewarned: the descent into madness and that surreal
abyss we fondly refer to as "Lynch country" is only warming up!
Expect more magic and mayhem as Fred is locked up for the murder
of his wife and starts showing signs of acute schizophrenia. Our
hero actually physically transforms into another character
(Balthazar Ghetty), who is suffering from his own private
delusions in a smalltown that feels like an amalgam of Blue Velvet
and Twin Peaks. Again, this is only the beginning! Remember that
line from Wild at Heart where Lula attests to the fact that this
whole world is wild at heart and weird on top? Well, Lynch has
actually made a film based upon that one line, an extremely
confusing but utterly compelling trip into the chaos that
surrounds us all. Film buffs will have a ball looking for clues to
Lynch's visual puzzles, hunting for references to most of the
master's earlier work.
- The rest of the audience can just sit back and let this
thundering rollercoaster roll over them. Those of you with an
extra pair of eyes might also notice some quality acting from
leads Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette (who should get an Oscar
nomination- but probably won't - for her glamourously slutty
portrayal of a split personality somewhere between Betty Page and
Joan Crawford). Those of you with an extra pair of ears might
notice the goosebump-inducing soundtrack created by Lynch in
collaboration with his musical alter-ego Angelo Badalamenti and
the weird but wonderful talents of avant-garde stars Barry Adamson
and Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails).
- The soundtrack also features excellent tracks from the likes
of David Bowie ("I'm deranged", how fitting), Marilyn Manson
(psychotic schlagers) and Rammstein (doing one better than the
already quite disturbing Einst|rzende Neubauten). Lost Highway is
what the movies were invented for: films that are proud to be
films and don't ever want to be novels or plays. Don't miss this.
You've rarely had it this good.
TOM PAULUS
copyright © 1997 -
Tijd Cultuur N.V.