Chapters

Eraserhead

There is a movie that has had my number for years. You see, I have early teenage onset of curly hair. The prognosis was (and to some extent still is) poofy, fro-y hair. Especially on humid days, dry days, sunny days, mornings, afternoons… etc.

I found myself somewhere in the catacombs of That’s Rentertainment one day staring at a nerve-wracked, freaked out version of myself on the video shelf with gigantic poofy hair. The cover was not at all helpful in determining the content… no obvious setting, no other characters; just a bride of frankenstein stare coming out of grey, blackness.

the movie? Eraserhead.

At that age, movies like “Bloodsport”, “Short Circuit 2″ and “Encino Man” were imminently cooler picks and so it nagged. Something like a barely audible whir/whine while in the movie store… Maybe something like an obsession to find my curly-headed ancestors. But why take a risk on a precious chance to rent something. Why the beady-eyed weirdo?

My brother eventually watched it. alone. and would only say mysteriously: “You won’t like it Nils- it’s not your kind of movie.”

So here I was, 2 month ago seeing it in the 37th page of my movie recommendations from Netflix.

The history of my obsession coupled with my brother’s insistence and a long-unfulfilled curiousity made this movie a sort of guilty aspiration. Ashamed the way you might be if you stood outside someone’s kitchen window, at night, hoping to see them dump a hot pan of lasagna onto themselves, I clicked.

I had to rent it.

Finally after working through other, more normal picks it arrived. Last night, sitting at home and eating my dinner alone, I sat across from the mail and pulled the disc from the pile.

It fits that it has come while Sonya was already back in Illinois. I needed to see this movie alone.

Eraserhead is not the story of any curly-headed forbears .I couldn’t finish. The movie develops a feeling in the viewer. The enjoyment is based on watching the director do this to you. I felt grating discomfort and mystery. Much of the movie is framed with the noise of whirring and winding of machinery, steam leaks in pipes and electrical fluctuations. The main character, my counterpart, finds himself descending deep into strangeness with an extremely rapid pregnancy of his girlfriend that results in a baby not clearly human. He dreams.

The movie itself is stunningly beautiful. The combination of the black and white film and expertly set lighting makes this movie enthralling. The phantom weird that is everpresent but almost un-seeable is wild. Feelings of decay and entrapment are thoroughly conveyed with odd decorations, worn paint, piles of mud with sticks in them placed on nightstands, mud. The intensity is subtle.

Overwhelming I think. I can’t recommend this film to anyone but my friend Brendan. He knows where the weird lives.

It’s my bizness, mah biznass… or at least my biznits.

I have begun a blogathon. Well. Or at least created a second place to update only occasionally.

The second blog is www.nilschristianson.com/biznits and will focus on the professional side of my life.

Biggity Biz and the Tip Top Fizz