Review: Eraserhead (1977) · 11:46pm Jan 11th, 2016
Every so often, you see a film that simply defies any semblance of logic or sanity, and Eraserhead is possibly the crown jewel of WTF Cinema.
Clocking in at a mere hour and twenty-nine minutes, Eraserhead introduced the world to the singularly demented genius that is David Lynch. Almost completely void of dialogue, Lynch slowly unfurls a nightmarish parade of increasingly disturbing and avant garde imagery, while completely avoiding any semblance of explanation or clarification, leaving the meaning and symbolism up to the audience to decipher. Easily his most profoundly bizarre film, it plays like the ultimate nightmare/fever dream. From the constant background groaning and rumbling of ambiguous origin (factories? wind?) to the mewling of the horrendously hideous (and possibly evil) "baby" to the ghostly jaunt of Fats Waller music, the soundscape of the film becomes just as much of a character as the humans...assuming all the characters are human.
Trying to decipher the imagery and meaning behind it is a task tailor made for jumps into the unknown, but, since this is a film review, I feel I should at least try. From the opening sequence, where Jack Nance's super imposed head vomits up what looks like a giant tapeworm/sperm, to the way the "baby's" head resembles a worm, the film seems to be a meditation on the fear and panic Nance's character feels at the results of his sexual dalliance with Mary X, the typical girl next door. There's the fear of having to interact with her strange family (a dominating mother and an all too happy father and mute/immobile grandmother), there's the fear of the "baby" itself turning against him, and there's the allure of the Lady In the Hallway, a woman who exudes sexuality, but in a predatory, devious way. Nance's character seems both hunger for and fear his own lust. On the one hand, the prospect of bedding the Lady in the Hallway, and on the other, the fear of being saddled with the responsibly of fatherhood, personified by the ambiguously demonic "baby", who then undermines whatever feeling of contentment he might have had in private by mewling constantly, causing his wife to abandon him with it, and also goes and undermines any hope with the Lady in the Hallway, by scaring her away with its borderline demonic sense of menace that clings to it (possibly shown to us when the Lady in the Hallway visualizes the "Baby's" head replacing that of Nance's.) Eventually, Nance can take it no longer, and in possibly the most disturbing film scene put to celluloid, he kills the Baby by cutting away its swaddling cloth and stabbing it in the lungs (or whatever you call the mysterious, organ-like contents that the cloth was wrapped around). Tellingly, this is the first time Nance's character does something proactive, and in doing so, causes the Baby to transform into a gigantic, eldritch abomination version of itself, which proceeds to eat him.
Or it could be something entirely different, and I'm just crazy. Who knows.
But in the end, Eraserhead functions as possibly the purest distillation of Lynch's ethos I've seen so far. Abandoning plot and proper storytelling logic in favor of pure, raw imagery, he crafts the ultimate nightmare, and in doing so, set himself on the path to becoming one of cinema's most singular and unique artists.
5 out of 5 stars.
....for better or for worse, one would presume.
I actually watched this recently having come across it and hearing so much about David Lynch.
I remember reading somewhere that David Lynch took inspiration for the movie from a single Bible verse.
I kinda want to know what translation he had, because damn.