Review of Eraserhead (1977) by Edward S — 24 Jun 2012

"Eraserhead" simulates the world to us when we're at the point between deep sleep and clinging consciousness. It's beautifully dreamy and trippy, sporting much exercise in film technique. A simple story of a reclusive introvert trying to remorsefully deal with his mutant baby (don't laugh!), a product of his own hesitant hedonism, has been told in a relatively rich and compelling manner. That being said, it's unforgivable for its feelings of campiness, many scenes of pure nonsense which are either entertaining or platitudinous, and authorial intent of having either a fallacious one or complete lack thereof.

This film will always be in the public memory, and, consequently lauded for the sheer reason it exists. It's on the same boat with "Avatar" for being a film of pure experience, though "Eraserhead" is much more whimsical and I guess artsy in its approach to escapism.

"Eraserhead" is either a work of true surrealist brilliance, charlatanism trickery, lucky bloviation, or a type of pretension, a cinematic grandiloquence, that we all want to say we understand.