Before I Die #642: Eraserhead

This was the 642nd film that I've seen out of the 1,222 movies on the "Before You Die" list that I'm gradually working through.

Director: David Lynch

A relentless work of disturbing film art. Enjoyable? No. The work of a master? Unquestionably.

No summary or synopsis of this movie does it justice, but I'll give you the basic characters and "plot," as much as such a thing is possible. Henry is a rather awkward, lonely man who gets his girlfriend Mary pregnant. Mary has the baby and moves in with Henry, but the baby's incessant crying drives Mary to leave Henry with it for a night. From that point, Henry's mind seems to break, and it becomes more difficult to distinguish Henry's reality from his panicked and lust-fueled delusions.

Honestly, that's about the best I can do, though one could even debate such a simple explanation of the plot of Eraserhead. There are countless ways to interpret what you're watching here, thanks to a level of surreality that would become a hallmark of director and writer David Lynch. The movie is all in black and white, which already creates a starker tone than a color film. But this movie goes light-years beyond that. With carefully-chosen shooting locations, meticulously-crafted props and sets, and masterful use of light and shadow, this movie brings you into a nightmarish landscape that is a thoroughly-realized world of its own. This may seem an odd thing to say, since a natural reaction to much of Eraserhead is, "What in the hell is going on here?!", probably quickly followed by the question, "How much more of this can I take?" The story of Henry is presented in such a dark, horrific, disorienting manner that it is disturbing, almost from its opening moments. At the very least, it is challenging, with very few aspects that are straightforward or easily interpreted. Just to give a simple idea, the film opens on Henry floating in space; we get closer to a planet superimposed over his head, then enter a building on that planet. In that building is a man pulling various levers. These images are followed by something that seems to be a spermatozoa moving along, eventually entering a pool. We are shortly after seeing Henry go about what passes for "everyday life" in this movie. Right away, we're being asked to put some serious thought into what we are seeing. And the movie never lets up in this regard. Every person, every location, and nearly every image suggests broken people in a broken world, with terror seeping into every fiber of all of it.

Even an ostensibly "normal" scene like sitting around the
dinner table is humming with a foreboding sense of
eerie alienation and isolation. As weird as these scenes are,
they are among the tamer ones in the movie.

If this sounds like a difficult viewing experience, it is. In fact, this was my second attempt at watching this. My first attempt - about 15 years ago - was a failure after getting about 40 minutes into it. My brain just wasn't up to the task, even though I had seen and even enjoyed a few of Lynch's later films (which I'll be rewatching and reviewing soon). If you're not ready to see this as a piece of art to be studied - if you're not ready to grapple with multiple disturbing, perplexing images and sequences, then Eraserhead will not be for you. I must say, though, that on this successful viewing, I was fairly compelled. I think I found a better, objective perspective from which to watch a movie like this. This is not a movie to be "enjoyed," in my view. At least, not in the same way that a mainstream action or adventure movie is. Not even in the same way that a drama is. Rather, Eraserhead is a film that you allow to pull you in, in order to ponder over what vision its creator is bringing to life. And I don't think anyone can dispute that David Lynch had a cohesive vision here. Not cohesive in an obvious, narrative way, but cohesive in terms of tone and mood. Once I locked into this, the film became more fascinating. I certainly didn't "understand" all of it. Not even close. But I enjoyed the mental exercise of theorizing what the story and images were representing, and what it was saying about its protagonist.

This is certainly one of the more challenging, least accessible movies that I've ever seen. I can only recommend it to people who enjoy surrealistic art, and who don't mind dark and disturbing energy flowing through a movie. In the coming weeks, I'll be watching more David Lynch and coming up with an overview of several of his films and TV shows. I'm fairly sure, though, that Eraserhead will reign as his strangest picture.