The film opening credits, and the ending and ending credits, feature long shots of driving down the lane markings at night. Utena borrows it more or less directly. It suggests that Akio’s road is also lost.
Lost Highway (Wikipedia) is a 1997 film directed by David Lynch, who is famous for surrealism and dense symbolism. Who could be a more natural influence on Utena?
I ordered the 10-CD box set of Utena music from Japan. It comes with a thick booklet. For my purposes, the booklet doesn’t have much useful information, but on page 65 it points out that Utena’s stock driving scenes are influenced by the film.
An anonymous reader wrote to me that Utena also includes Twin Peaks references. I’ll chase those down eventually.
The film opening credits, and the ending and ending credits, feature long shots of driving down the lane markings at night. Utena borrows it more or less directly. It suggests that Akio’s road is also lost.
Mr. Eddy rapidly accelerates his Mercedes to excessive speed to ram another car, whose driver had tailgated him, and force it off the road. Then he violently beats and threatens the other driver, and demands that he never tailgate again... because it’s dangerous. Like Utena, there are points of satire. Touga asking Saionji not to stand in the motorcycle sidecar (mentioned here) looks like a reference. Akio’s acceleration to excessive speed means that he is committing an act of violence to enforce his rules. He is: In Utena, sex is a form of violence to enforce patriarchy. The excessive speed is emphasized especially in episode 33, when at one point the car accelerates to ridiculous speed, with increasing numbers painted on the pavement. Akio violently defeats the prince and renders Utena girlish.
Watching the movie once through, I made a list of shared elements. I bold the ones that strike me as more significant. No doubt I could find more and deeper connections if I worked through it more thoroughly, but I didn’t enjoy it the first time.
• doing wrong out of love and/or fear
• dreams
• femme fatale
• imposing rules on others - Mr. Eddy
• light and dark selves - Renee and Alice, possibly others
• mirror imaging - forehead injuries, among other examples
• murder
• phone calls
• red sports car
• sex, including car sex
• time running backward - the desert cabin; also the whole plot is a time loop
• unremembered past meeting
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 9 January 2024
updated 27 September 2025