Imagine being gang-mind raped by a chicken and a laughing pencil. Distil it into film form, get rid the resulting trips to the psychologist afterwards and you’ve got pretty much what watching Eraserhead is like.
Sorta. Watching Eraserhead isn’t quite like that, but then I have no other description for what watching Eraserhead is like. It seemingly goes out of its way to be completely indescribable and revels in being un-understandable. Maybe it’s a representation of the fears of parenthood taken to the extreme, but then how do the dream sequences fit in? Maybe it’s trying to convince the audience that there’s a meaning behind the picture when really there isn’t. Maybe David Lynch finally went completely insane and filmed the whole movie from inside a padded cell. Maybe the entire movie is just a figment of my imagination. Maybe YOU are a figment of my imagination. How do you feel now, huh?
The basic plot is that there isn’t one. Henry Spencer knocks up a girl who he’s then forced to marry. The baby is born as a cross between the alien from Alien and a sausage, wrapped up in bandages. The world is full of umbilical cords/sperm, there’s a woman with puffy cheeks singing in radiators, chickens are tiny and the soundtrack never becomes more than a series of sounds that resemble a recording of an attacking kitten played backwards. That’s about as much as I can figure out.
Still, this is an utterly brilliant movie and you should watch it. The surreal visuals, slow pace and odd music give the movie a genuinely unnerving atmosphere and it is essential viewing for anyone who’s bored with normal films and wants something more interesting to watch. And the ending is qui
ERASERHEAD
Written and directed by David Lynch
Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Laurel Near and whatever the hell was used to make the baby puppet.
Watch it now. Good night, and don’t have nightmares.
No comments:
Post a Comment