Even now after seeing David Lynch's Eraserhead I cannot seem to get some of the images out of my mind. I feel a need to cleanse myself and see something relaxing and recognizable after witnessing what I would describe as a disgusting, disturbing, uncomfortable display of meanings and commentaries that come together to make the polluted, sickening presentation of filth that we witnessed. If to make people feel uneasy and uncomfortable was the purpose for David to make films such as these then he did a great job.
Even from the very beginning of the film things are not right, at least, not the way most people view them to be. The beginning composition with the character "Henry" being horizontal and zooming in and out as well as being panned up and down vertically was a sign of the off-balance things to come in the rest of the film. It was all very slow, slow movement with a droning, wind and atmospheric background noise throughout the entire film with the exception of a few strange songs with actual lyrics being repeated over and over again in them.
There was a feeling of disease and an organic, biological mix with the mechanical industrious deadness of nothingness.
The concept of fading in and out and closing in used through the darkness and the light mingled with size relationships was alien. It all felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable. The desolate and barren scapes mixed with industrial deterioration and ruin brought about a sense of being lost and in despair with no hope of ever escaping a monotonous nightmare of the unfamiliar and uneasy.
The Human interactions and displays of emotions were hard to watch because of a dark underlying sense of un-reality, what made sense and what did not make sense.
Some words that came to mind when watching were
Dirt/filth
neglect
despair
breaking point
stranger
destruction
emptyness
disturbance
awkwardness
There was a very dark undercurrent and I could definatley apply consumption, excess, sacrifice to the wasted food at the dinner scene, the killing of the creature. At one point I thought of the "Tell Tale Heart" when "henry" is laying down and the creature is making sounds that seem like laughter right before he kills it with the scissors.
Does a person have to be in a certain state of mind to watch something like this or especially make something like this? It was hard to watch and I wish I had not watched it but I see the value in looking at all sides of something, whether it be a piece such as this film or a movement like surrealism.
Going against the flow and the norm seems to be a main canal for the surrealist movement. The slap in the face to "high art" and artists from the Renaissance. Embracing the unconscious world of a neither reality where anything good or bad or strange is possible and does not seem out of the ordinary because the ordinary does not exist.