The Alphabet (1969)
8/10
Disturbing animated short shows Lynch had it from the beginning.
22 April 2004
This was the first time David Lynch shot live-action footage. It isn't really a narrative film, like The Grandmother, but its more than a filmed moving painting like Six Men Getting Sick. It is mainly animation, truth be told, but it combines live action with it. This is what a child's nightmare looks like inside David Lynch's head - and let me tell you, its quite disturbing, on a par with Grandmother and Eraserhead.

Some of its images, like the girl bleeding from the mouth and reciting the alphabet - i can't get out of my head. I don't know if that's a good thing... Lynch is a very strange man, indeed. And what we get in his films isn't half the story, as members of his website will tell you. There are images there that you wouldn't even know to be wary of, to not think about - images you don't even know to protect yourself from. But as Elephant Man showed us, he is also a master director, who can control himself and a major production to perfection. As Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Dr showed us, Lynch's world can also be lots of fun. He's one of my favourite filmmakers because he gives me both fun AND haunting in the same frame - a feat not many can do.
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