David Lynch,who started out as a painter,moved into conceptual art,then moved into film,first with a piece that involved six animated heads vomiting something like six times (Six Figures Getting Sick). He then moved on to his first short film,'Alphabet',some time later. In 1970,he directed his second short film,'The Grandmother'. To call this film short surreal would be like calling the Grand Canyon vast. 'Grandmother' told the tale of a young boy (played by Richard White,who is just credited as "The boy"),who has to deal with two of the most dysfunctional parents (Virginia Maitland & Robert Chadwick),who crawl around on all fours,bark & whine like a pair of dogs,and make the boy's existence sheer hell. The boy figures there must be something better out there,and from a seed found in a bag marked "seeds" plants the biggest one,from which a kind of spiny vegetation sprouts. When the vegetation/plant gives birth to a full term,adult grandmother (Dorthy McGinnis),the boy now has some kind of link to parental love. David Lynch,in addition to writing & directing this bizarre,dreamy (and occasionally nightmarish),surreal film,also photographs,edits,creates stop motion animation & has a hand in the sound design (with Alan Splet,who also worked with Lynch on Eraserhead). Not widely screened,but well worth seeking out for fans of experimental/avant garde/midnight cult films (it was shot in 16mm,which would somewhat limit it's distribution to cinemas that are equipped for films of that nature). Not rated by the MPAA,but does have some rather unsettling,if not outright disturbing sequences that would give some young 'uns some screwed up nightmares.
Review of The Grandmother
