GTK Radio (Guide to Kulchur)

Lost Highway is one of the highest peaks of David Lynch’s filmography, in terms of cinematography, atmosphere, and soundtrack. The film’s conception of time—perhaps a Möbius strip—has something in common with Nietzsche’s cyclical time, Giorgio Locchi’s spherical time, or the Buddhist saṃsāra. But more than anything else, it seems like a psychological maelstrom in which every character has a double—even the detectives—as in a Jungian interpretation of dreams. The theme of the double and the Doppelgänger, also typical, for instance, of Borges’s fiction, finds here one of its highest forms of expression. And what about the Mystery Man, who never seems to blink? He could be a symbol of the male unconscious, which does not need to enter the house because it has always been part of it. This is why he is able to “film” what is hidden inside without having to physically “enter” it. In any case, the ending deserves applause: the end is also a new beginning.