Thursday, August 28, 2008

Lost Highway

Continuing my Twin Peaks-inspired Lynch kick, I watched Lost Highway last night.

This is a Lynch I'm a much more comfortable with. The obscure cyclical story. Messages to yourself from the future. Dopplegangers. Body jumping. Choppy, nonsensical narratives. Creepy fellows. And, also, whores who get slaughtered. Ho-hum (I'm thinking that one of the reasons I liked Mulholland Drive is that it's a Lynch movie that actually passed the Bechdel test. Thus far, I have not found any others that do. Maybe Inland Empire? I'm thinking Dern talks to the gypsy about something other than a guy. Maybe). Though at least this one wasn't a damsel in distress.

I think what I like about these whacked-out jump narrative dream-logic movies is that they force my brain to try and make connections between things that just aren't connected. Our web designer tells me this movie was apparently Lynch's way of sorting out the whole OJ trial fiasco, looking into how a guy can live with himself after committing an atrocious murder.

I admit I was struck dumb at that event as the catalyst for this movie. The only connection I see is... guy kills his wife and is set free... um, but he's set free because he literally transforms into somebody else. And then goes and has an affair with his supposedly dead wife, who is now somebody else's wife, only not really.

Um.

It's a Lynch movie, all right?

In any case: dream logic. It's why I like these. It's a crazy brain exercise, which is likely good for my plotting muscles.

This one is a typical Lynchian brain-exercise.

3 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Anonymous said...

That movie freaked me out. Still have only seen little bits of Blue Velvet, probably because it freaked me out so much. And yeah, like you I try to draw logical connections where there are none, although I did less of that with Lost Highway since I had already seen Mullholland.

BTW, it is ages off in the future, but they've been able to produce beta-like cells in mice whose islets of langerhans were killed off, although the new beta-like cells don't form islets of their own. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature07314.html

Anonymous said...

shucks, and i was one of those dumb-asses who tried to write an 18 page exegesis one what mulholland drive was about, and you nail it in 3 paragraphs. if you'll excuse me, i shall now retire to the library with a magnum of lafitte sour grapes 1969.

i'm also interested in hearing which lynch you were UNcomfortable with, as you clearly have a well-trained palate - was it wild at heart?

Kameron Hurley said...

This was a *totally* creepy movie. That whole beginning freaked me out. I was curled up on my couch under a blanket the whole time.

I'm not sure which movie I'm least comfortable with... so far it's actually Blue Velvet, because it seems so *not* Lynch. There's an actual narrative, and a syrupy stupid ending, which made it a sort of bad B movie instead of an interesting experiment...

I haven't seen Wild at Heart yet, tho. It should come in from Netflix next week.