Film

Eraserhead (1977)

Director: David Lynch

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Lynch's remarkable first feature is a true original. There's little in the way of a coherent story: nervy Henry, living in a sordid industrial city of smoke, steam and shadows, is forced to marry his girlfriend when she pronounces herself pregnant, and finds himself the father of an all-devouring, inhuman monster. But, almost like a surrealist movie, it has its own weird logic, mixing black comedy (concerning nuclear families and urban life), horror and sci-conventions, and pure fantasy. Best seen as a dark nightmare about sexuality, parenthood and commitment in relationships, it astounds through its expressionist sets and photography, the startling, sinister soundtrack, and relentlessly imaginative fluency. Only the sequence that gives the film its name - a dream within the dream about Henry's head being lopped off and turned into a pencil-eraser - fails to work, and that's a small reservation for a film with so many cinematic coups.

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