Simbabbad Reviews

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Schizophrenia is ragged and dirty

[1/10 · 5 February 2002]

... and in *no way* as clean, logical, and understandable as in pictured in that pathetic sum of tired Hollywood cliches.

I'm 27, and I've spent 16 years of my life struggling through delusional phobia and paranoid hallucinations. Like the main character in the film, I was successful mainly because of logic : because I kept thinking over and over to keep delusion away from reality, and to know what was really going on and what wasn't. In the end, I was really successful because of medication, by the way, but I certainly escaped madness because I knew before I took medication the difference between what was real and what wasn't.

So, I feel entitled to tell you that this movie is a total fraud. Not only does it cheat with the main character's story (who wasn't faithful to his wife, who was bisexual - something really important here), but mostly, it shows a comforting, tamed view of schizophrenia - which is entirely missing the point.

Schizophrenia is a mind structure, not a disease. A schizophrenic *isn't* a "normal man with a disease", it's someone who from early on views and feels things differently from most people : for him, things like time, space, and people's personalities aren't solid things. He feels it can be bent, it can change, it can mutate, and maybe even disappear. To cope with this, a schizophrenic has a rich, very imaginative inner world which "normal" people don't expect - but he's trapped in it because he can't relate with most people, and his world gets poorer and poorer until he finishes in a blank, delusive dead end.

This is very different to what's depicted in this ridiculous "cure", tear-jerking movie. It should be violently frightening. People other than the main character should appear strange, weird and absurd, like in Lynch's "Eraserhead", for example. There should be *really* impressive, weird, gross hallucinations, because that's what schizophrenia is all about. It's not about *details*.

I mean, watch "Naked Lunch", "Lost Highway", read P.K. Dick's "Martian Time-Split" or "Ubik", DO watch "The Cell", "Perfect Blue", "Dark City", or play "American McGee's Alice" on PC, and you may have a vague idea of what it's like. Don't watch the "feel good" movie of the month, with banal situations, cleaned characters and visuals, and stupid plot tricks. "The Cell" is the most accurate movie about a schizophrenic's mind, his visions and his inner consistency - it's violent, weird, confusing, and very, very scary.

Once again, Schizophrenia isn't about details, it's not a neat, tame trick played to you. It jumps in your face and won't let you go : walls fall apart, people turn into strange hostile creatures, you feel like you go backward in time, you're not sure you're who you think you are, everything feels... strange, unnatural. Believe me, this is much much more than what's depicted in this soap-like melodrama

Eraserhead (1977)

Way overrated (spoilers)...

[9/10 · 19 November 2001]

OK, first to give you an idea, I do love many of Mr. Lynch's works, *especially* his stranger ones. I admire "Lost Highway" and "Fire Walk with Me", I liked very much "The Straight Story", "Twin Peaks" and "Elephant Man", and I found "Blue Velvet" interesting.

I've also seen "Eraserhead" three times in theatre, and own it on DVD. I've made a virtual HTML simulation of Twin Peaks' "Black Lodge", and plan to include parts of "Eraserhead" in it.

But "Eraserhead", as much as one may like it, is just not as deep, or artistical, or surreal a movie. It is, like Kafka's "Metamorphosis", a one-sided view from a pathologic mind, of a very banal situation.

What's the "plot" ? A schizophrenic man discovers he made a child to a girl he spent some time with. Forced by her parents to marry her and to take care of the baby, he just can't cope with it because of his mental pattern, and therefore kills it in the end.

That's it.

The only original thing about this is that it's seen from the main character's point of view. But, like with "The Metamorphosis" this leads to :

1) Weird scenes that makes sense only for the author and aren't meant to be communicated to an audience. It can make big suggestions to your subconscious, and therefore lead you to a dreamy mood, but many MTV music clips can do that as well. It *isn't* surrealism.

2) Gory, barely justified gooey effects.

3) One-dimensional atmosphere, in the case of "Eraserhead", a grey, dirty, greasy, industrial one that's not artistically justified - there goes the "art" side of the movie. It's quite well handled and interesting if you're into visual art as I am, but it's also boring because, well, one scene looks exactly like the other.

4) (Nearly the worst) : one-dimensional characters. Since they're seen from a schizoid point of view, they're all weird, ridiculous, unpredictable and potentially hostile, in short, a nuisance (schizos like to be left alone). No character depth like in "Fire Walk with Me", for example. This simplification includes the baby, seen as a monstrous thing that looks like what it probably was on set : a dead animal covered with glue so that it wouldn't rot too soon.

5) Passive main character. He's just not doing anything, except in the end (?). It makes the movie all the more, well, inept, action-wise.

6) The worst : obvious meanings. Yes, "Eraserhead" fans, you read me. Henry (the main character) can't sleep with his pretty neighbour because of the baby ? The baby laughs. Henry is afraid to make his wife pregnant again ? We have a looooong scene of him pulling giant spermatozoids out of her vagina. Henry's mind is vanishing because of the baby ? The baby's head pops out of his body, and his brain is used to industrially make pencil erasers - hence the title. Gee, what may this all mean ?!

So, all in all, what we have here are either symbols that mean something for Lynch alone (many of those themes, like the show scene with curtains, the zigzag floor, or the blinking lights, are by the way found in his other feature films, which are all better), or that are painfully shallow (examples above).

So, in short, just a bad film in itself, which is quite normal for a first feature-length film which took five years to direct with no money. Still, it may interest you if you like Lynch, or visual art (flawed works are often more interesting to analyse than successful ones) - or it could just lead you to quite an interesting mood if you're not the dreamy type all by yourself, and like to be forced to dream instead of being gently suggested to do so.