Eraserhead (1977)

 

Eraserhead

“Eraserhead” is the first David Lynch movie on the List, but certainly not the last. Lynch is a legend. Some love his movies, others hate them, but it is impossible to not have an opinion on them. Even when I am completely weirded out by his movies, there is something compelling about them that sucks me in.

“Eraserhead” is a good example of his most surreal movies. Even his most mainstream movies have surreal elements certainly, but few are as thoroughly surreal as “Eraserhead”. To describe it in an objective sense is almost pointless. There is a guy called Henry (Jack Nance) with very tall hair, who lives in a lousy apartment in a noisy, industrial neighborhood. Some of the scenes are dreams of his, others may not be dreams, but are certainly as weird as dreams, while others again seem to be Henry externalizing his impression of events around him, sort of his interpretation of what is going on. He is visiting his girlfriend at her parent’s house for a very strange dinner and learns that his girlfriend has given birth to a baby. Henry and his girlfriend, Mary (Charlotte Stewart), now live together in his apartment, taking care of the bay, only, the baby is a freakishly misshapen creature that is constantly crying. Eventually Mary gives up and leaves and Henry is left to care for the sick monster on his own.

Interspersed within this frame are the even weirder dream scenarios, which include a stage with a singing girl with puffy cheeks, a sexual encounter with the girl next door and Henry’s head falling off to be taken by a boy to a factory and made into pencils.

All this is presented in a gloomy black and white cinematography with dark industrial sounds and very little dialogue.

As soon as we are talking surrealist and certainly when it is Lynch, we know that everything we see is a metaphor for something else and that very little of it should be read for its face value. The task for the viewer is then to try to work out the metaphors. I cannot say I am good at that, but I have also resisted the temptation to read up on all the, most likely, very clever analyses out there. It feels good to build my own impression of what I saw.

To me, what we see is Henry’s emotional impression of his surroundings. His life is confined and claustrophobic, hence his small and shabby apartment. He is nervous around other people and projects his anxieties onto his family in law, the awkward interview externalized. The baby is an intruding little monster challenging him, hence it is depicted as a such. Maybe when he loses his head, he is eaten up by an uncaring world into something useless. Inside, he is himself a helpless freak of a child and the girl in the radiator is, well, salvation? An angel? Freeing him from being himself?

Maybe I am completely off, but the oppressive gloominess is undeniable. The nightmare that has closed Henry in, is shared with us and I feel as claustrophobic as he does, watching it.

Many of the images are Lynch classics. The girl on the stage element is also used in “Twin Peaks” and “Mulholland Drive” and to some extent in “Blue Velvet”. The man pulling the levers that control the world. The dark-haired seductress challenging the lead character.

“Eraserhead” feels like a mental state, an image on a feeling and as such there is meaning in everything and over time, I will likely uncover more details and get some understanding, yet the most important understanding is the unconscious one I experience simply by watching it.

“Eraserhead” is deeply unpleasant and wildly fascinating, difficult to love but impossible to let go of. And definitely not for a Sunday afternoon with the children.

Yes, I have grown to like David Lynch movies, even when I feel deeply disturbed by them.