"In heaven....everything is fine..."

David Lynch is one of the, if not best, visionaries in contemporary film making in the 20th century. His work is outstanding. ‘Eraserhead’ started it all. Lynch can control a viewpoint and make you experience a blood turning nightmare with ease. His movies, especially this one, feel like a drug-induced hellhole, a cinematic injury in need of help. Like they are a horrific car crash that you just drive by and just can’t stop looking at. David Cronenberg has only just come as close to creating a technology driven society/ paranoia, movie (see Videodrome). Life is dull. Life is repetitive. It is on a loop. Going around and around. Nothing can change. That is what the hero of the movie is thinking as, everyday he wonders home to the same boring predictable things.

The movie is Lynch’s debut and, in my opinion, his greatest work. Now I would like to try and explain the movie in how I think it is represented. This is bound to cause debate from hardcore Lynch fans but please feel free to comment. The hero of the movie is basically a young David Lynch. Coming home everyday from work to the same predictable wife, same nagging mother-in-law and same yelling child. David Lynch loves and, dare I say it, is obsessed with darkness and shadow. I’m not sure if this is influenced from classic film-noir or if he is trying to set a new bold radical use of light onscreen. Answer please? The movie is dedicated to his first born child which explains the fear of the baby. Lynch made the child in the film a weird crying alien. Lynch felt scared when his child was born and saw it as something not from this planet. It is extreme paranoia. It may sound, to some people, ridiculous to be threatened by a small child but Lynch, a man of un-stabled envy and pride could not balance his emotions. Was he proud of this child or ashamed for bringing it into this horrible world?

Lynch told all the people on set not to tell anyone how the ‘baby alien’ worked. They gave their word and kept it. Even to this day nobody has told. I would love to find out how it works or how it was made. The whole film deal’s with life, love or lack of love, respect, trust and loss. But all shot like a nightmare. A deeply dark satirical swipe at 50’s American life. When the threat of the nuclear bomb lingered high. All American’s had their big cars and their big houses and their happy waving children. At least that’s what the American adverts, made by the government, had us believe. American family life seemed perfect but ‘Eraserhead’ showed us the other side. The dark side. The ending is Lynch totally destroying himself. He has tried to work things out with everyone. Family and Friends. He does not want to live anymore. But this is where Lynch has worked his genius once more. Does he actually commit suicide? Lynch turns the ending (last 10-5 min) into a black comedy. The character does not fear death although he seems a coward. Surely he would like to see how thing’s turn out. Then again does he actually die? ‘Eraserhead’ is such a sensitive movie to review or critique so I have left a lot out. It is an opinion movie. A movie not for critics, Lynch hates critics, but for you to watch and make your own assumptions. The movie has all the Lynch trademarks: Paranoia, fear of commitment, Technophobia. It is set in a world/society that is blinkered as to weather it will be sent out of control. The nuclear bomb and mother-in-law seem to have the same effect. Should America listen to what Lynch is saying? Is it all too late? Can anyone answer? A brilliant movie that leaves a mark on the mind the size of Hiroshima.

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