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This 16mm film from 1970, with black and white live action and color animation, is about a young boy who escapes
his abusive parental environment by growing from a seed a loving grandmother of his own.
The black and white live action has the look of early silent films: grainy shots, stylized makeup, exaggerated acting
techniques, erratic pacing, diversity of lighting, and unassuming costumes.
The film already has the look, and more particularly ths sound, of Lynch's later works. For example, a growing yellow spot
on the boy's sheet mirrors the animated yellow orb of the sun and flows into a yellow shot of the boy's idealized
grandmother. Lynch spins the webs of his visual fabric. The boy's elongated, pathetic screams of both ecstasy and misery,
the thunderous downpour, ant the parents' exaggerated enunciation and omnious clipped dialogue aurally reinforce
the film's disquieting mood.
"The Grandmother" earned Lynch a place at the American Film Institute's Center For Advanced Studies in Los Angeles,
where he would spend five years making "Eraserhead"
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