Lost Highway

Enigmatic. Ethereal. Weird.

``Lost Highway'' is all of these things . . . and less.

David Lynch is back in a ``Blue Velvet'' mood, after having been diverted for a few years following his ``Twin Peaks'' fiasco (meaning the movie, ``Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,'' not the strangely mesmerizing television series).

And that might be a good or bad thing, depending on your feelings about Lynch's bizarre film work.

In the case of ``Lost Highway,'' there are some striking scenes, moments that fill the eyes and others that rattle the brain. But in the end, audiences may come away wondering what the heck was the point. (Not that that's unusual for a Lynch film.)

For its first third or so, we seem to be in an Alfred Hitchcock movie . . . if Hitchcock had been on drugs.

The central characters - initially, anyway - are jazz musician Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) and his sexy wife Renee (brunette Patricia Arquette), whom Fred suspects of cheating.

At a posh party one night, Fred meets a ``mystery man,'' a short, pasty-faced man dressed in black (Robert Blake, who is certainly frightening but who also resembles the TV version of Uncle Fester on ``The Addams Family''). And a cell phone call in this scene is bound to go down in movie history as a supremely creepy moment.

One morning, a video tape in a plain manila envelope is dropped on the Madisons' doorstep. They plug it into the VCR and discover that someone has been watching their home with a camera. More tapes follow over the next few days, each carrying the voyeurism a little further, eventually invading their home and filming them asleep in bed. Then, ultimately, a tape shows the aftermath of a grisly murder.

Fred is arrested and charged with his wife's murder. But did he kill her? For that matter, is she really dead?

Then, before you know it - and in a surprising manner - the action shifts to another set of characters. The central focus is now on Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty), a young auto mechanic working in a small garage (operated by Richard Pryor).

Pete has a passing relationship with a mobster named Mr. Eddy (Robert Loggia), who brings in his car from time to time. But now, Mr. Eddy ups the ante by giving Pete an initiation of sorts. (And demonstrates a unique way of deal-ing with tailgating.)

Later, when Mr. Eddy brings in his sexy moll (Arquette again, now a blonde), it is apparent that Pete will begin an ill-fated affair.

And yet, as this is David Lynch territory, you can be sure that nothing will ever go quite as expected.