I like art films- I don’t mind black & white. I don’t need everything
all laid out to me in a film… I’ve taken film classes & learned to
enjoy German expressionist films for their lighting & symbolism,
etc….. but for the life of me I can not comprehend how this film has
such a high rating.
I felt like I had wasted 1.5 hours of my life in trying to see this
film. I think I would’ve enjoyed it better had I skipped the movie &
just read the reviews and learned that it was supposed to be about an
alienated man in a depressing industrial who suddenly has a monstrous
baby. If only I could’ve gotten that from the film. Instead I stared at
piles of hair, a deformed warty chipmunk woman, and a alienlike giant
spermatozoa being stabbed to death while people hallucinate. I wasted
the entire film searching for meaning…. trying to figure out what the
piles of hair?/hay? were for? What alien looking spermatozoa had
anything to do with what was going on?... etc.
Just a few hints could’ve helped make it a good film… there were
things that if explained would have been more enjoyable and seemed
interesting… the ominous/abrasive music, the creepy mis-en-scene (the
elevator that hesitates, the radiator, the dead tree in dirt, etc.)
This film is in no way a work of genius. I’ve seen films that deal with
alienation & isolation. There are tons of films out there about the
fear of parenthood or the feeling that your child is an evil entity
(Rosemary’s Baby, Omen, Bad Seed, etc.)
You CAN convey these emotions in a coherent/logical fashion and have a
plot/make sense.
This just added to my internal debate that David Lynch movies provoke:
Is he literally schizophrenic and unable to process reality the way
most other people do? Has he taken too many psychotropic drugs? I even
tried watching the interview with him after the film on the DVD and was
unable to bear it. He seems lost in another world and just rambles.
People seem to like this film simply because it’s shocking &
experimental. Sorry, but that’s not enough for me. I’d rather have
something that’s original, pushes the envelope but ALSO be interesting (or at least not like watching someone’s disjointed nightmares). I took nothing away from this film – and that makes me feel like I wasted my time.
I give it a 3/10. It gets a few points for 1. No T&A, no sexism, no racism, no homophobia 2. No product placement 3. Showing the otherside of the overly sanitized/sentimentalized concept of parenthood.