Eraserhead (DVD, 2006, Limited Edition)

Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) is a regular guy forced to live in a rotten industrial neighborhood. His wife is tired of their baby's constant crying and goes home, leaving Henry to do the right thing. He dallies with the Beautiful Woman Across The Hall, but The Baby frightens her off. Finally Henry cuts the bandages off the Baby's body and finds out that the Baby can't be physically alive. The Baby is basically a glob of organs wrapped in bandages; Henry pokes at them and they spew stuff that looks like egg yolks. The Baby dies in agony (or ecstasy?) and Henry's world collapses around him... but he ends up in the arms of the Lady In The Radiator, who has been singing songs about Heaven to him all this time.

That's basically the story. If you've seen movies like "Mulholland Dr." and "Lost Highway", you'll get some idea of the weirdness involved here. David Lynch is not interested here in telling a story; he wants to explore ideas and create a mood-- so if you're looking for a traditional story line the synopsis above is about as close as you're going to get. It's a mood piece based on Lynch's experiences as a new father in a bad part of Philadelphia, if that's any help. But to ask what Lynch's more abstract movies are about is like asking what Bach's Brandenberg concertos or Brian Eno's 'ambient music" are about. Charlie Chaplin once observed that if you exaggerate any human hardship enough it becomes funny. Don't be afraid to laugh; "Eraserhead" is a comedy in the classical tradition.

The DVD itself is almost too well-packaged (it's hard to open); it comes in a box that could hold a stack of 45s, wrapped in a tight-fitting sleeve. But the transfer is very good (the widescreen format helps provide information that sets the tone of the film), and there is a feature-length video ("Stories") in which Lynch talks about the making (but not the meaning) of "Eraserhead". He also calls up Catherine Coulson (Jack Nance's first wife, who worked on "Eraserhead" and played the Log Lady in "Twin Peaks") and yaks with her on a speaker phone. "Stories" seems to have a greenish tint that comes and goes; I don't know if it's a video artifact or if it was put there on purpose ("Stories" is in black-and-white)-- but the effect doesn't appear in "Eraserhead". I've heard that there's an Easter egg on the disk (it supposedly allows you to access extra footage on Lynch's Web site), but I haven't found it.

I have always been a david lynch fan and I am happy to finally own his first film on dvd at such an affordable price. I understand it is a very difficult product to find anywhere outside of David Lynch's website, though E-bay and half dot com have never let me down. The product was recieved in excellent condition and I very happy with the product.

Thank you for your excellent business.