Review of The Grandmother (1970) by William K — 05 Jul 2017

One of David Lynch's more famous short films "The Grandmother" is a silent film about a boy who is horribly abused by his odd parents, once he sprouts out of the ground next to them during the beginning of the film, presumably signifying him to have been an unplanned pregnancy. The parents only seem to communicate with him through moronic shouts, and random bursts of physical abuse. One day after a day filled with torment, He finds a bag of seeds upstairs, one of these seeds contains the boys grandmother, he plants the seed, helps water it and grow it until his grandmother emerges from the plant. the boy and the grandmother form a bond, and the film gets stranger from there.

This definitely screams Lynch and is known as the work that helped lead to his much more accomplished film Eraserhead. While never really hitting the mark, however you can definitely see the signs of what would become one of the worlds most distinctive directors in Cinema. Lynch uses the colors of white and red well here against the entirely black backdrop, with purposefully choppy visuals, mixed in with crudely drawn animation that bleeds with symbolism, and eerie sound design to create something occasionally unsettling, but never at all clear enough to be truly thought provoking.