If you had to single out one director who approaches filmmaking from a point of near-total abstraction from the real world, the chances are you'd name David Lynch. His movies lurk somewhere in the nether regions between reality and the subconscious, leaving the viewer in a state of existential limbo where imagery and meaning become open to wild interpretation and little is as it seems. Lost Highway is no exception. We are introduced to a jazz musician in Los Angeles who believes his beautiful wife is having an affair - a short while later he's in police custody accused of her murder. Then we jump incongruously into a parallel story line, this time with a youthful, confident young man who becomes embroiled in the lives of gangsters after embarking on an affair with another beautiful woman - who appears to be the double of the murdered wife. Is she one and the same person? Is the young man also a double of sorts, representing the wish fulfillment of the accused? In typical Lynch fashion, the further Lost Highway moves along the more confusing and obscure its meaning becomes - the result is nightmarish, disjointed, and leaves you questioning the nature of identity and the way in which anxiety and guilt can manifest itself in the psyche. Repeated viewings only seem to throw up even more unanswered questions. Did you find the plots to these movies as confusing as we did? Which other films had plots which made your head hurt just thinking about them? Why not post a comment below and let us know?
