Film Review: Eraserhead

11 Flares Twitter 5 "> Facebook 3 Google+ 1 "> Pin It Share 0 "> LinkedIn 1 "> StumbleUpon 0 "> Buffer 1 Buffer"> Email -- Email to a friend"> Filament.io -- Filament Ideas to Inventions More Apps"> 11 Flares × About Eraserhead (1977)Is it a nightmare or an actual view of a post-apocalyptic world? Set in an industrial town in which giant machines are constantly working, spewing smoke, and making noise that is inescapable, Henry Spencer lives in a building that, like all the others, appears to be abandoned. The lights flicker on and off, he has bowls of water in his dresser drawers, and for his only diversion he watches and listens to the Lady in the Radiator sing about finding happiness in heaven. Henry has a girlfriend, Mary X, who has frequent spastic fits. Mary gives birth to Henry’s child, a frightening looking mutant, which leads to the injection of all sorts of sexual imagery into the depressive and chaotic mix.

Starring: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates, Judith Roberts

Directed by: David Lynch

Runtime: 85 minutes

Studio: Absurda/ Ryko

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Review: Eraserhead

David Lynch’s debut film took years to complete due to a lack of funding but is now considered as an undoubted masterpiece. It tells the story of Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) who returns home from work to be told by his beautiful neighbour (Judith Anna Roberts) that his girlfriend Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) has called and invited him to dinner at her parents’ house. Henry attends the dinner but appears socially awkward, lacking in assertion and maladjusted in whatever environment he finds himself in. He is informed by Mary’s mother (Jeanne Bates) that Mary is pregnant with his child. Henry agrees to marry Mary and raise their child together but what follows is far from ordinary family life.

Henry and Mary’s baby is not human. It is a mutant child of sorts, wrapped tightly in a bundle, constantly crying and unwilling to eat anything that its parents offer. When Mary goes home to her parents to get some sleep Henry is left holding the baby and Lynch’s surrealist and confusing influence takes over. When not lusting after his neighbour, we see Henry’s head in space, his entire life seemingly controlled by the Man in the Planet (Jack Fisk) who pulls some levers at the film’s outset to begin the story. Henry also encounters a Lady in the Radiator (Laurel Near) who enjoys singing and dancing and entertains our uncomfortable protagonist. The question is can Henry reconcile reality from illusion and how will he cope looking after the baby alone?

While David Lynch is undoubtedly a fine director, his work is not always for the faint hearted or the easily confused. My previous experiences with the likes of Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire gave me fair warning for what Eraserhead might do to my brain. Everyone has their own interpretation of what this film is really all about. On a basic level it can be treated as a horror with the taciturn Henry forced to finally take action and do something to care for the mutant child in his apartment. The meanings run far deeper than that though and it’s one of those films that will be discussed for decades to come. While I admired the storyline and the techniques that had gone into the film, the conclusion is grotesque and very dark which will prove off-putting for many people.

Eraserhead is an impressive debut work, put together on a tiny budget, though its financial constraints do not show as they so often do in other films. Every scene is painstakingly worked and this being Lynch it’s a treasure trove of conflicting meanings for film fans to argue over for the rest of their lives. That unpleasant denouement taints this somewhat for me but if you are a fan of Lynch’s work then this is a must-see to go back to where the legendary director began.

Verdict: 3/5

(Film source: reviewer’s own copy)

About the Author:

I was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England and have always been a bookworm and enjoyed creative writing at school. In 1999 I created the Elencheran Chronicles and have been writing ever since. My first novel, Fezariu's Epiphany, was published in May 2011. When not writing I'm a lover of films, games, books and blogging. I now live in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, with my wife, Donna, and our six cats - Kain, Razz, Buggles, Charlie, Bilbo and Frodo.

David M. Brown – who has written 745 posts on Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave.

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