Lost Highway (revisited)

On the IMDb trivia page for Lost Highway, there's an entry that reads, "In a recent interview, director [David] Lynch confessed that Lost Highway and Twin Peaks take place in the same world." I recently had the chance to watch the early-90s TV series Twin Peaks, which was helmed by David Lynch, and when viewing Lost Highway through the lens of Twin Peaks and the world therein, suddenly Lost Highway begins to make a frightening amount of sense!!!

Though there's still enough ambiguity left over that we can't entirely patch the whole Lost Highway narrative up neat and tidy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that this is a David Lynch film—and by definition, his movies are about as abstract as can be. But all the same, it's often a lot of fun trying to piece together his movies and somehow making sense of the mess . . . yet it's equally as fun just allowing yourself to get caught up in the fascinating, brilliantly nonconformist narrative without needing to figure it out. Just allowing yourself to be taken for the ride, as it were.

But Lost Highway in particular presents a very challenging base for interpretation, because it goes in such unanticipated directions that it almost seems like it's meant to not be figured out. That it's meant to be completely indecipherable. Therein lies the charm of Lost Highway, and it was from this premise that I originally reviewed the film last year.

But again, with Twin Peaks now serving as the Rosetta Stone for further viewing, the premise behind Lost Highway becomes shockingly and almost refreshingly clear.

Let's examine Twin Peaks first. The bulk of the series (which spanned only two seasons on TV) involves the investigation into the murder of high-schooler Laura Palmer in the small Pacific Northwest town of Twin Peaks. Though the real crux of Twin Peaks only became clear towards the end of the series: that the town and the surrounding woods were haunted by the fabled Black Lodge, a place that can really only be likened to Hell. The inhabitants of the Black Lodge are the purest embodiment of evil, and many of these spirits have the power to possess the minds of people living in this world. In Twin Peaks, it was the spirit of Bob possessing Leland Palmer all throughout his life, up to the point where Bob took over Leland's body and soul to kill his daughter, Laura.

These two points are key to understanding Lost Highway, because we have two identical visages in Lost Highway: the Mystery Man, and the "lost highway" itself.

The Mystery Man could be likened to Bob from Twin Peaks—the evil spirit residing in the Black Lodge who takes control of souls in this world, but only when invited. And the lost highway, in particular the late-night scenes of driving down an abandoned superhighway, could itself be the Black Lodge. And the late-night desert and cabin that Alice Wakefield takes Pete Dayton to are inside the lost highway/Black Lodge, much like the Red Room is inside the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks.

Like Bob, the Mystery Man only possesses souls who personally invite them into their minds. In Twin Peaks, Leland Palmer invited Bob into his mind at a terribly young age, and Bob continued to haunt and possess Leland for the rest of his life. In Lost Highway, when Fred Madison demands to know how Mystery Man got into Fred's house (when they meet at Andy's party), Mystery Man's response was, "You invited me. It is not my custom to go where I am not wanted." In both cases, the invitation of Black Lodge inhabitants into their souls either resulted or came as a direct result of the desire to do murder—Leland murdering Laura while under Bob's possession, and Fred secretly desiring to murder Renee over her infidelity with Dick Laurant and Andy.

Unlike Bob's possession of Leland Palmer, though, I think that when Mystery Man possesses Fred, you physically see both men together. Remember how, the night Renee is murdered, she calls uneasily into the dark hallway, "Fred, where are you?" From there we cut to the dark living room, only to see not one but two shadows silhouetted along the wall, walking through the dark house. And then again when Mystery Man and Fred execute Dick Laurant in the desert, both men are there. (This would also explain how, when both Fred and Pete Dayton look in the mirror, they only see themselves, whereas Leland Palmer would see Bob in the mirror.) But much like Bob's possession of Leland Palmer, Fred likewise doesn't remember his activities during his possession. Which would explain his puzzlement at the intercom message, "Dick Laurant is dead", as well as his inability to contemplate how he killed Renee.

So with these two key points, I think Lost Highway progresses much like this (and I'm working from the progression of the movie, rather than from a linear timeline).

Many of the beginning scenes illustrate the marital tension between Fred and Renee, as well as Fred's growing anxieties about her possibly cheating on him—such as her not coming to any of his jazz gigs, her not answering the phone when Fred's out, or Fred seeing her walk through the crowd with Andy at another gig. To say nothing of the uncomfortable and detached sex they have one night, which ended up being crippled for several reasons: 1) Fred's anxieties got to him, 2) Fred briefly saw Mystery Man's face in place of Renee's, and 3) Fred actually envisions Renee being murdered in her bed.

This could possibly be the moment when Fred invites Mystery Man into his subconscious.

Because after this, Renee begins to find videotapes from an anonymous sender left outside their front door. These tapes show exterior shots of the house, but progressively get more private and personal by showing Fred and Renee sleeping in their bed together . . . and ultimately, a blood-soaked Fred kneeling over Renee's mutilated body. When viewing these videotapes through the Twin Peaks filter, these videotapes could be interpreted as harbingers of death—much like Sarah Palmer had a vision of a white horse every time a family member was about to die in Twin Peaks.

When Fred is in jail for Renee's murder, he spends all his time obsessing about how he could have possibly killed Renee. Hence, all his headaches and his inability to sleep. When he looks to the side of his jail cell the one night and sees the cabin burning in reverse progression, I believe he is glimpsing an entry into the Black Lodge. Further to that, his sizzling convulsions on his bunk could signify his being sucked into the Black Lodge, where he's doomed to stay forever.

The transition scene of him driving down the deserted highway at night . . . again, I believe that the "lost highway" itself is the Black Lodge, and when Fred pulls over to the side of the road and encounters Pete Dayton for the first time, this is illustrating Pete's transport from his own world into Fred's jail cell. Notice how Sheila is calling frantically for him to come back, and how Pete's father runs after him as if Pete were in danger, because of the white lightning surrounding Pete. This scene is often referred to as "that night" in Pete Dayton's linear progression, and in Twin Peaks, white lightning often symbolized entry into the Black Lodge.

At this point, I should state that I believe Pete Dayton is a real person—not a figment of Fred Madison's imagination, like so many of us have believed. And Pete's disappearance was genuine, if only temporary. Remember how people like Arnie, Sheila, and Pete's friends are happy to see Pete back in this world after being gone for a while. But this brings about another important element of Lost Highway, which is to say, the purpose of Pete Dayton in the story. I believe that Pete is brought in to complete the murders that Fred started but couldn't finish (because he's in jail), and I don't believe a doppelganger is capable of committing murder. While in the possession of Mystery Man, Fred was able to murder Dick Laurant (which I'll get to later) and Renee, but he wasn't able to take care of Andy.

This is where Pete Dayton comes in, because soon after Pete begins working at Arnie's garage again, he meets up with Mr. Eddy and Alice Wakefield . . . each of whom would be doppelgangers of their real-world counterparts (Dick Laurant and Renee, respectively). Remember how Dale Cooper returned to the world from the Black Lodge in the final episode of Twin Peaks? That was his doppelganger (his double, if you will), with the real Dale Cooper still trapped in the Black Lodge.

With Alice Wakefield serving as the doppelganger of Renee, naturally their lives will parallel each other magnificently (think of her relationship to Andy, her porn background and the porn tapes with Renee and Marilyn Manson at Andy's house, and the very telling photo of both real Renee and doppelganger Alice). But her real purpose is to manipulate Pete into killing Andy. And when Pete and Alice escape from Andy's house and drive to the cabin in the desert . . . this is really them entering the lost highway/Black Lodge.

Alice's final line, "You'll never have me", after sex with Pete in the desert is indicative of Alice being Renee's doppelganger, only to disappear into Black Lodge oblivion when entering the cabin. And thus the Mystery Man re-enters the scene, showing his video camera and shouting, "What the fuck is your name?" The fact that Fred Madison re-emerges instead of Pete is really irrelevant, because by now, both men are trapped inside the Black Lodge forever.

The remainder of the film, however, could be interpreted as flashbacks, or visions of when Fred (under the possession of Mystery Man) kills Dick Laurant after his liaise with Renee at the Lost Highway Hotel. This is actually the first time Fred is possessed by Mystery Man, and again, you can recognize his possession because you see both men together. And later, when the black Mercedes pulls up to Fred's house, it isn't Fred himself who returns to his own house to announce, "Dick Laurant is dead." It's his doppelganger, his Black Lodge-created double. The real Fred is the one who answers the page, the one who was sitting alone in his house early in the morning during the film's opening shot.

During the police chase the follows, Fred's doppelganger goes through the white flashes and convulsions that symbolize his shifting through the Black Lodge to another time and place . . . this one being the unpossessed Fred being struck in the face by the one cop who shouts, "Sit down, killer!" And then we have the confused, inexplicable Fred unable to believe that he's possibly just killed his wife.

And the final parallel between Lost Highway and Twin Peaks: the ever-famous red curtains! We see red curtains in the bedroom of Fred and Renee's house . . . and in Twin Peaks, the red curtains symbolize the entrance to the Black Lodge! More of a symbolic send-up to Twin Peaks, but a necessary one nevertheless.