"The stream flows, the wind blows, the cloud fleets, the heart beats... Nothing will die"

Rating: 10/10 (20 April 2002)

Never could one hope to find a film as ugly and beautiful as David Lynch's film biography of John Merrick (The Elephant Man). Merrick's story is perhaps one of the most heartbreaking and appalling cases of human injustice to those different, with a strong message, which still holds importance to this day. In the hands of a lesser talented director this film may have been just another pointless Hollywood story, but in the hands of Lynch the film becomes a haunting, beautiful, but at the same time, highly disturbing work of art. Always surrealistic in its storytelling approach, the film sets up Merrick's complicated birth with an abstract dream/flash back sequence, dimly lit and photographed in gloriously grainy black and white the audience can't help but be immediately drawn in to the story.
The film then jumps forwards, and introduces us to the character of Fredrick Treves (Hopkins) at a London carnival, where Merrick is being shown as part of the sideshow. Treves is unable to see Merrick due to the police, who close the show before he gets there, but hungry for a glimpse he arranges to for a private showing with Merrick's owner Bytes. Lynch is reluctant to show us Merrick in full daylight for the first quarter of the film, which in my opinion was a clever move, because it allows we the audience to share Treve's intrigue as to weather or not the tag Elephant Man is suited, or whether we are being duped into seeing something not too much out of the ordinary. It is only later that, after we see Merrick, we realise that he is truly deformed beyond human recognition.
The next part of the film is where the real argument of The Elephant Man rests, the age-old argument of beauty only being skin deep and how those who have beauty on the outside often have none on the inside. As Merrick goes to show the staff of the hospital of which he's taken residency that he is an articulate, erudite human being, he is slowly integrated into polite society, not from respect though, the crowds are only gathering because viewing Merrick has become something of a status symbol, and this is where Treve's must decide whether or not he has forced John to exchange one freak-show for another.
For me The Elephant Man is one of the most staggering and moving films of recent cinema, the herald of a maverick talent in the then young David Lynch, and brimming with evocative production design, beautiful photography and a wealth of fine performances from Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud and Michael Elphick, not to mention Hurt's remarkable performance hidden under layers of prosthetic make-up. It is true what others have said, that The Elephant Man is a very bleak, very downbeat film, a film not afraid to hold a mirror to society's injustices, but the ending is uplifting in a different way than most conventional happy endings. In the respect that John has just has the happiest day of his life, and no day will ever be that good, so the perfect way to end that perfect day, is to sleep like he has always wanted to, even if it will result in his own death. With the final line (used as my summary), we are told that nothing dies, that the spirit will always live on. What a touching sentiment to the endurance of the human spirit. A masterpiece 10/10