David Lynch film is captivatingly bizarre
One of the hallmarks of a David Lynch
film is the element of surprise -- the sense
of not knowing what will happen next and
the queasy dread that what you're about to
see could disturb and haunt you and linger
in your head for a long time.
Lynch established that agenda in
"Eraserhead,'' his first feature- length film,
and he hasn't abandoned it to a futile quest
for mainstream acceptance.
It's impossible to imagine Lynch making a
conventional film with "normal'' people
and "normal'' entertainment values - a
fact that binds his fans to him but alienates
many critics and moviegoers.
In "Lost Highway,'' which opens today at
Bay Area theaters, Lynch continues his
exploration of the unknown and delivers a
dreamlike meditation on reality, identity
and paranoia. Set in a bland city that
resembles Los Angeles, "Lost Highway''
stars Bill Pullman, fresh from play ing the
enthusiastic president in "Independence
Day,'' as Fred Madison, a spooked
saxophonist who finds himself terrorized
by a man who enters his house when he's
asleep and videotapes him and his girlfriend
Renee (Patricia Arquette) as they sleep.
At a party, he meets a smirking trickster,
played in ghostly white makeup by Robert
Blake, who declares himself the culprit.
Blake invites Pullman to dial his own
phone number and to listen as Blake,
who's standing before him, "answers'' at
the other end of the line.
That's just a taste of what Lynch and
co-writer Barry Gifford, whose novel
"Wild at Heart'' inspired Lynch's 1990
film of the same name, have to offer.
There's also a murder; a fire; a personality
transformation involving an auto mechanic
(Balthazar Getty); a gangster's moll, also
played by Arquette, who cons Getty into
committing a crime; a memory lapse by
Getty; a reappearance by Pullman; and a
series of bizarre foreshadowings and
precognitive images that may or may not
pro vide clues to the mystery of "Lost
Highway.''
The result is a world, part film noir, part
apocalyptic acid nightmare and pure
Lynch, in which nothing can be trusted or
relied upon - least of all our psychic
well-being.
It's a weird movie, in that spooky/sicko,
deadpan way that Lynch's movies always
are, and it's guaranteed to repel anyone
who likes entertainment wrapped in tidy
resolutions and optimistic fade- outs.
The visuals, Angelo Badalamenti's music
and Lynch's sound design -- his perennial
sound designer, Berkeley's Alan Splet, died
in 1994 - are all effective, and the comic
bits, specifically Robert Loggia's scene as a
mobster berating a tailgating motorist, are
all effective.
Filmmakers such as Lynch deserve our
admiration for creating new cinematic
idioms and exploring new ground. At the
same time, "Lost Highway'' often feels
like a stunt - like an arcane, deliberately
perverse game that Lynch knew would
never make sense. It's also feels, with its
similarities to "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk
With Me,'' "Blue Velvet'' and "Wild at
Heart,'' like overly familiar territory.
Lynch's great wish is to shock and arouse
us, but in using the same kind of music,
camera effects and offbeat editing rhythms
over and over, his work is beginning to
look like variations on a single theme.
Arquette, whose low-in-affect style is
perfectly matched to Lynch's, gives the
strongest, most memorable performance -
and brings to mind Kim Novak's similar
dual roles in "Vertigo.''
There is also a cameo by Richard Pryor,
along with appearances by Gary Busey,
rock star Henry Rollins and Natasha
Gregson Wagner, daughter of the late
Natalie Wood.
LOST HIGHWAY: Mystery. Starring Bill
Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar
Getty, Robert Loggia, Robert Blake, Gary
Busey, Richard Pryor and Natasha
Gregson Wagner. Directed by David
Lynch. Written by Lynch and Barry
Gifford. (R. 135 minutes. At the
Embarcadero, California in Berkeley,
Aquarius in Palo Alto and UA Pavilion in
San Jose.)