Eraserhead

Rating – 4/4

*SPOILERS*

         Strange doesn’t even come close to describing this film. It’s a world of weirdness and a world of raised eyebrows and inquisitive looks.

         Directed by David Lynch and starring Jack Nance, strange is one of the many words than can describe Eraserhead. It’s many genres blended into one. It’s a body horror film. It’s a psychological film. It’s an arthouse film. It’s an experimental and avant-garde film. And it’s a film that has never been matched in its weirdness. But what is it really?

The answer is: All of the Above!

         But if you guessed something else, you’re probably right!

         Eraserhead follows the story of Henry Spencer (Nance) as he survives in a post-apocalyptic, industrial world. And here is the “plot.”

         Henry’s girlfriend Mary X has a baby.

         Is it really a baby?

         The two marry and move in together.

         The baby cries all night, refusing all food and comfort.

         Mary X abandons Henry to take care of the baby.

Henry has visions of a deformed lady in a radiator.

         And then things unravel.

         Yep, that’s the plot of Eraserhead, if you could call it that. There is enough to keep a viewer engaged and interested, but the film decides to forgo the typical three act structure found in most stories. Instead, things just…happen and some things don’t make sense. There is a lot of symbolism that means something but nothing is ever truly explained. Nor should it be.

         Eraserhead is like watching someone’s nightmare. They become a father, something many people fear. The child is difficult. And then the mother leaves the father as a single parent. The soundtrack to the film is mostly industrial, ambient music that plays giving every scene an uneasy and disturbing feeling. There is little dialogue, with characters mostly using their body language. But it’s not something that can be explained on paper, but rather something that needs to be seen to be believed. It’s a film you don’t watch, but experience. It’s a film that invokes feelings of being uncomfortable, but also morbid curiosity and invokes discussion on its meaning.

So what does it really mean? What was the message? What was the “baby?” Well, people have tried to figure that out for years but no one can agree and nor will anyone. Like all things in life, we’ll all have different experiences and have different opinions on them.  Eraserhead is such a film that everyone will have a different opinion about. There are no wrong answers to this masterpiece.

And remember: In Heaven, everything is fine…