by Chris Stelmak
Staff Writer
Imagine driving a car, lost in a strange city. You are not quite sure where you have come from, and you are not sure where you are going. You are now sharing the same confusion that the audience experiences in Lost Highway.
David Lynch adds another successful movie onto his wall of confusion. Lynch is known for his direction of confusing films such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
With Lost Highway, Lynch shows off his skill at leaving the audience lost, yet somehow wanting more.
The plot centers around a man by the name of Fred Madison (Bill Pullman). Madison is an improv jazz musician who becomes worried that his wife, Renee (Patricia Arquette), is cheating on him when he is out playing at clubs. The rage and confusion surges in Fred, and then things get stranger.
As the movie progresses, it turns out that Fred is also living another life. He mysteriously transforms into Pete Dayton, played by Balthazar Getty. Pete is an auto mechanic still living with Mom and Pop. The change is unexplained and strangely accepted as the movie moves into a different plot with several common threads.
Even stranger, Arquette comes back into the plot, except this time she is the blonde knockout Alice Wakefield, a mobster's girlfriend who is attracted to Pete.
As it turns out, Alice is also living a double life, cheating on her mobster boyfriend to be with Pete. So actually, Arquette is living about four different lives.
However, the plot is nowhere near that easy. One is left wondering if the film takes on the disorder of Pulp Fiction to an exponential effect or if Lynch is up to his usual antics.
The pale-skinned man who calls different places and talks to himself adds a bit of confusion to the film. Fred's unusual daydreams do not help, either.
Pullman does an excellent job in playing Fred. The deep character takes advantage of Pullman's acting skill much more than the shallow part of the president in Independence Day.
Arquette also does an equally convincing job. She shows true talent in her role of Renee. Her cold, hollow stare stirs up uneasy feelings on several occasions.
The settings and lighting in Lost Highway make the movie appealing even if the plot is hard to follow. Moody lights shadow vibrant colors to set an eerie tone. Lynch uses them in a way that demands attention.
The movie is over two hours long, yet does not seem long enough. Two separate plots filled with violence, nudity and confusion separate and come together many times to easily fill up the time. The movie may confuse you, but it also gives you something to think about when you're traveling down that lonely stretch of road.