“In the East, the Far East, when a person is sentenced to death, they’re sent to a place they can’t escape…”
This quote, which comes late in the film, is the key to unlocking this story’s secrets. Now, I’ve seen this film a handful of times, the first time was in theaters and that didn’t go over well with my friends. This week was the second time this year that I watched this film and the first where I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This is an aspect of Lynch’s work that has been well documented by people, including myself. Lynch makes you work — he makes you earn everything. Lost Highway was a film I struggled to fully appreciate for years and it wasn’t until earlier this year where it all finally clicked for me. So this past week, when I watched it again for the purpose of this piece, it became a rocket ship of awesome insanity.
I won’t bother you with much of the plot because this isn’t even close to a plot driven film. There is the real and the quasi real and then half the film exists in no form of reality whatsoever. To be reductive, it’s a film about an angry and bitter man who murders his wife and is sentenced to death as a result. In prison, this man conjures up an alternate reality in an attempt to reconcile his own emotions with the world and his place in life. The story eventually folds back in around itself and one version of our protagonist speeds away down a lost highway, chased by the police.
To begin, Lynch’s camera during the opening credits, is a maniac. It’s a simple shot of a pitch black highway, lit only by a speeding car’s headlights. It is manic, illicit and frenzied. The credits fly at us like bolts of lightning. This is more than it seems, these little tidbits will come back around full circle by the end of the film. The story then begins proper as we’re taken to the protagonist’s home. Fred, played with restrained detachment by Bill Pullman, is a musician woken from slumber by a buzzing on his intercom.
“Dick Laurent is dead,” is all the voice says. Fred looks outside but there is nobody around. His wife Renee, played with an otherworldly sexual peace by Patricia Arquette, comes down and opens the front door to find an unmarked package on their front steps. Inside is a videotape and on that videotape is camcorder footage of the inside of their home. Unsettling. Everything Lynch does in the early going is unsettling. His camera has now slowed down to resemble security footage — as if we are the ones spying on Fred and Renee. The sound design, again (I know, broken record), is top notch and used to build an immense amount of dread. We are so confused by what is happening or the lack of anything meaningful happening. But beneath the surface resides a storm of emotion. Lynch spends most of the film exploring shadow and light. This rewatch is really hitting home that Twin Peaks: The Return was Lynch’s way of connecting and commenting on his entire career. The colors red and black are significant in this film. They represent desire and danger, violence and death. The colors can be amorphous but they are representing an extremely violent yin and yang of Fred’s world.
The more time we spend with Fred, the more we see him unhappy in life. It’s clear he doesn’t trust his wife and thinks she’s cheating on him. He’s stuck but he’s also too much of an ineffectual nothing to actually take command of anything. He is constantly retreating into shadows — into his own darkness. The film continues to explore “dark places” and when we join Fred and Renee at a party, Fred is cracking. It’s here where he first meets the white faced man, played with demonic gusto by Robert Blake. Quick side note here, Robert Blake is supernaturally good in this role. I know, I know, perhaps this hit kind of close to home for him but it is worth mentioning how incredible his performance is. The white faced man is elusive and speaks in riddles but he also serves to egg Fred on, but to what? The answer comes quick as Fred is shown a tape of himself right after he has brutally murdered his wife. Fred is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to die by electric chair. He is trapped in prison and we feel his claustrophobia. It’s also here in the film where we realize how tight everything through this point has been shot with Fred. Lynch has put us in Fred’s skin, making us crawl and fidget with how uncomfortable and closed in we feel.
It is in prison where this film goes completely crazy. Fred wakes up one morning and he is no longer Fred. He’s a young guy named Pete, played by Balthazar Getty. Nobody can figure out where Fred went and where Pete came from. Pete is returned to his parents’ house and soon continues his normal life as a mechanic. Right off the bat, the film settles down. Lynch uses a wider color palette and shoots the film in a more traditional way. Pete is normal. Pete is well liked by everyone. Women throw themselves at Pete. Pete has it all. The first part of the film feels almost sterile compared to how alive Pete is in his world. Pete gets a visit from an older rich man named Mr. Eddy, played exactly how you’d expect from Robert Loggia. Mr. Eddy loves how smart Pete is when it comes to cars. Mr. Eddy also has a woman with him played by Patricia Arquette. Her name is Alice and she’s blonde instead of a red head now. Alice only has eyes for Pete and he for her. They begin an illicit affair. This is all vitally important because it shows how wanted Pete is by Alice compared to Renee’s indifference toward Fred.
Pete begins to unravel a bit as the affair continues and Mr. Eddy begins to catch on. The air kicks up a dangerous wind directed at everyone involved. Pete begins having visions and dreams of a seedy motel with a layout like a maze. Pete eventually agrees to help Alice rob her friend Andy so they can run off together. They accidentally kill Andy and when they run, the stop at a mysterious cabin where they disrobe and have sex one final time. Pete tells Alice he wants her and she whispers in his ear, “you can never have me.” She then walks into the cabin and disappears. When Pete stands back up, he’s transformed back to Fred. This is where he again meets the white faced man and the quote from the top of the piece is uttered. Key given. Secrets unlocked. Lynch was doing inception over a decade before Nolan. Pete doesn’t actually exist — he’s a fantasy that Fred conjured up to make himself feel better. Pete is how Fred wishes he was perceived by the world. It’s the life he thinks he deserves. The film uses dreams and fantasies as a way for our protagonist to act out his deepest and darkest desires. Fred is transported to that seedy motel and arrives just after his wife Renee has slept with Mr. Eddy, who in the real world is named Dick Laurent. Fred bursts in and beats the shit out of Dick, eventually throwing him in the trunk of his car. They arrive back at that cabin where Dick tackles Fred to the ground. An unseen man hands Fred a knife and he promptly slits Dick’s throat. The unseen man is revealed to be the white faced man who then shoots Dick dead.
Several things here, obviously the white faced man doesn’t actually exist. He is either the devil or the devil inside of Fred. He is Fred’s rage manifested into human form. This is how it all happened. Fred killed his wife’s lover and then killed her in a rage. Everything else is fantasy. Lost Highway is perhaps Lynch’s most nihilistic film. He usually has an undercurrent of love or hope but this one is all rage. It’s about power and fear — specifically the fear of women and how men try to exert power over them. Lynch has a penchant for turning the ordinary extraordinary and never more so than in Lost Highway. I was reminded of two specific Lynch works when watching Lost Highway: Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart. Lost Highway is similar in theme to Blue Velvet if the world contained no love. As for Wild at Heart, Fred reminds me of Sailor in an inverted sense and if he was never able to escape his own demons. Lynch likes to circle around themes, often exploring the same ones in multiple works.
And now we come to the finale with the newly Pete-free Fred arriving at his home to ring the buzzer. Once it’s answered, he says, “Dick Laurent is dead.” Fred turns to see the police arrive and takes off in his car. The police give chase and this closes the loop of the “plot” of Lost Highway. How could Fred be two people or even three people at the same time? He can’t and it doesn’t matter because none of this is actually happening anyway. Remember the quote I used at the top? This is what it all means. This is the world Fred is trapped in. He cannot escape…or can he?
We end with Fred fleeing the police and racing down a desolate highway. The camera shifts back to what we saw during the opening credits. The frenzy has come full circle. Fred screams and shakes his head violently, we see flashes of light. The film ends. Yeah, but like what’s the deal? Simple, Fred was put to death by electric chair at that moment of his journey through his psychological prison. The only thing that could free him was the carrying out of his death sentence. Done and done. Man oh man has this film jumped up my list of Lynch faves.
Next week, The Straight Story. Until then love each other.
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