Opinions

Something Different

This week I would like to talk about David Lynch's "Lost Highway." This extraordinary film plays tricks with the audience's mind. The main character Fred faces problems in his life, but it is portrayed in such a way that would be hard to understand for most people. This is actually the aim of a film genre called "Complex Narrative Films."

In such films we face a variety of structure, where the notions of time, space and reality are confused. The film shows events that are not possible in real life and therefore questions the very nature of the film, its narration and its components. This approach is opposite to Hollywood motion pictures where we have the classical narrative structure playing on the characters and events. This seems pretty shocking to most viewers used to the classical narrative.

Sometimes Time is played in reverse or in a chaotic order like in the film "Memento." This movie not only plays with Time but also has two story lines. One of them is in black and white, the other in color. One timeline plays in reverse while the other flows normally. This is a technique widely found in such films.

"The Lost Highway" is different in this sense from "Memento." It does not play with Time as much as the first one does but manipulates the reception of events and characters. For example, there is a Mystery Man that appears suddenly in a scene. We don't know who he is or what he is doing, but he serves a critical role in the film. We begin to question the reality represented to us and begin to think of the structure of events and the narrative. When we compare such an understanding to classical Hollywood films, we end up seeing that this process of questioning is not there. Sometimes the director or the writer leaves a story open-ended but never plays with the understanding of the audience.

For those who would like to try a different approach to films, I advise them to start off by watching one of those mentioned above.

Have a nice week…

By Alev Değim (COMD/V)