David Lynch is mighty impressive. His works have actually morphed the film industry. He influenced the styles of Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), and Aronofsky (Black Swan) among several brilliant directors. While finishing his degree in the American Film Institute, he concocted Eraserhead, a film about a man's paranoia on parenthood.
Interpretation
I am reminded of my literature classes. Some movies are like prose. Some are like poetry. Films are versatile. They can express notions in the freest ways possible. Eraserhead is a poetic sort of film. The film relies on imagery in mood. There are so many ways to interpret it and none of them would be wrong. But just like poetry, there is the surface-level analysis which is the most possible objective interpretation of the film.
Despite many accounts in the internet saying that the film has no linear plot, I believe that it does. The film begins with the image of Henry's head and a spherical object that has so many similarities to an egg cell (from my old biology books). Henry then opens his mouth and a sperm cell-looking entity emerges inside of him. A person who looks like he suffers from a skin disease (or this could be signs that that person is not human) pulls levers which make the sperm entity "drown" into the water of the cracked egg cell-looking thing. This part of the plot seems to symbolize sexual intercourse and the fertilization of the egg cell.
The succeeding event is Henry visiting his partner's house. He asks her why he has not heard from her. He meets her parents. There, he is informed that Mary (his partner) was pregnant and the baby was in the hospital. The mother did not explicitly say that Mary gave birth, though. This is obvious in meaning. Mary was pregnant and thus avoided Henry. Henry was called for so that his support on the matter would be contracted.
The baby seemed like a manifestation of Henry's fears. When it was sick, it looked absolutely revolting. It looked like the person with the skin disease in the first minutes of the movie. Its cries traumatized Mary and gave her the volition to pause her stay in Henry's tiny apartment. Also consider that this baby was not wanted in the first place. What I mean by wanted is that its conception was not expected at all; no preparation. All of these negative notes on Henry's baby connote Henry's non-desire to be a parent.
The latter areas of the plot seemed to be about Henry hitting rock-bottom. After touching the hands of this odd-cheeked girl, he is by the corner and his head falls off. His baby replaces his head. A kid picks up his head and sells it to this pencil-making company. A person then gets a portion of his head and turns it into a pencil. I notice parallelism here with the ill-skinned person in the film. Human acts are depicted as mechanical things. Levers are pulled to copulate and show the clockwork of the person. A pencil without an eraser was created out of Henry's mind matter. The mind matter is supposed to be the clockwork of the person.
I think that the Eraserhead was entitled as which because of several reasons. First, we should notice Henry's head. His hair is similar-looking to an eraserhead. Not only that. There is a reason for his head to be the focus. What happens in your head? You think. You feel (hypothalamus). The head is that vital thing of yours. Consider also that Henry is paranoid throughout the film. Eraserhead is connectible to Henry's own clockwork. (This reminds of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.) Everything in the movie is a manifestation of his own fears and ideologies. Also if we give regards to his eraser head, we could parallel his being and the plot of the story. A pencil could create and erase. His body creates and destroys. The last scenes of the movie show Henry killing his own child.
My Biased Review
I understand why David Lynch has reached milestones in the film industry. I do not mean the financial side but the more relevant areas of films. New elements are incorporated into this indie film. Clay animation is utilized and Lynch has a master hand in creating the fake head and using the embalmed calf head in animating the baby of the story. If you are in for the film that would wake you up, I do not suggest this film. If you are for the more intellectual orgasm sort of thing, this is close-to-perfect. Visually speaking, the filming is not too clear. This is reasonable since it is independently made. However, I do think that the darkness of the film plays with its mood. However questionable the quality of the film is, its awesome depiction of the woes of unwanted pregnancy and parenthood is the most striking thing. This reminds me of Usher's Confessions Part 2. I dislike the pacing of the plot, though.
That concludes my interpretation-slash-biased review of the great Lynch's Eraserhead. This is the perfect movie for when you feel that you are stupid and need an intellectual boost. Haha.
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| Revitalized for the weekend |
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