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| Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar
Getty, Robert Loggia |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
 |
DTS |
|
|
Trailer(s) |
|
Featurette(s) |
|
Documentary |
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Audio commentary
|
|
Deleted scenes
|
|
Concept art
/ storyboards |
|
Multi-angle
feature |
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
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Lost
Highway is currently only available on Region 2 DVD. A German edition
has a Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix that is reportedly slightly out of
synch with the image, a Dutch release is available from A-Video with
a Dolby Surround mix and a few extras. This review is based on the Dutch
DVD.
The anamorphic widescreen image
is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 2.35:1. Overall image quality
is good, with strong, sharp colors and excellent contrast levels,
though black levels are variable: most shots have wonderfully deep
blacks, but some are clearly too bright. There are few distracting
compression flaws and the picture is soft but otherwise generally
generally quite good.
This release carries only a Dolby Surround mix, which is a pity as Lost
Highway's original sound design makes great use of the .1 LFE subwoofer
channel, especially in the first part of the movie which features an
almost continuous foreboding rumbling in the couple's house. The sound
mix presented here is adequate with a strong front stage and decent
use of the rear channel, but one wonders how much more impressive a
full DD5.1 mix could have made this presentation.
Though
this can hardly be considered a Special Edition, there are still some
nice extras on this DVD. A 7-minute featurette is a brief but
welcome collection of interview snippets interspersed with shots from
the movie. It features both Lynch and the most prominent cast members.
It's a promotional item that hardly digs very deep, but contains some
interesting quotes. There is also a 10-minute collection of behind-the-scenes
footage that provides some insight into the way Lynch directs his
actors. The theatrical trailer is also on board, as are some
cast and crew filmographies. The
animated menus are done just like the title sequence, with a shot of headlights
speeding across a dark highway and the navigational options leaping into
the foreground. The main menu screen is accompanied by the looped opening
of David Bowie's opening credits track 'I'm Deranged', and much care has
gone into all aspects of the menu design.
Dan Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on Lost
Highway .
Click here
to return to the front page.
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Having
taken quite a critical beating when diminishing interest in his cult
TV series Twin Peaks reached its nadir with the critical and
commercial failure of the severely underrated Fire Walk With Me,
David Lynch returned to the screen with a surreal attack on the senses
that combines all the best elements of his work to date: the lawless
craziness of Wild at Heart is mixed with the dichotomous world
of Blue Velvet and is given its own twisted circular logic like
Eraserhead. Described half-jokingly by its director at one time
as a 'twenty-first century noir horror film', Lost Highway
is truly like being caught in someone else's nightmare, where nothing
makes sense yet everything is somehow understandable.
The
movie has two remarkable and sudden changes of gear, which the director
handles with great assurance. The first change, after Fred's sudden
transformation, allows for a bright and often hilarious breather after
the nightmarish first section. But the film's final stretch plunges
the viewer back into the depths of horror and despair one rarely encounters
in contemporary cinema, and comes to a neat climax that is as logical
as it is witty. Lost Highway is nothing short of a modern masterpiece,
and one of David Lynch's greatest works.