"If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, for which Rose Byrne just won a Golden Globe, is unmistakably a horror film. And yet how can it be? It's the story of a mother, Linda, with a very sick child. You never see the child, only the outlines of the anxious medics. You never find out what's wrong with her, only that it involves a feeding tube."
"Eraserhead is about a type of parental anxiety that only men can have, Bronstein says. And this is a film about a parental anxiety only a woman can have. In Eraserhead, he can leave and that's his angst. Linda cannot leave. That's hers. It shouldn't be seen as a betrayal to say: I can't take this any more I'm really angry"
The film centres on Linda, a mother caring for a very sick child who is never shown and whose condition is only indicated by a feeding tube. Linda's mental state deteriorates into claustrophobic, vertiginous fear, alternating between panic-attack surrealism and unbearably real moments. Maternal experience is rendered as a descent into an abyss, exposing anger, desire to escape and the shame of forbidden feelings often labeled betrayal. The film positions maternal anxiety as distinct from male parental angst, using dark humour and intense atmosphere to confront uncomfortable truths about love, suffocation and guilt.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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