Beautiful and sad

Rating: 7/10 (13 April 2020)

The Elephant Man is a beautiful film about several things: the two very distinct human characteristcs; compassion and cruelty, aswell as the curiousity that is John Merrick.
It is a tale based on the life of the actual person Joseph Merrick with some dramatic changes to his life story. It may be a David Lynch film but the storytelling is very classic, similar to other stories of the genre like Beauty and the Beast or the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
We follow the heavily deformed man John Merrick who everybody seems to treat as a monster or rather an animal until he is helped by the doctor Frederick Treves. Frederick sees the humanity in John and also discovers that behind all those tumors (and makeup) is an actually very sensitive and intelligent man.
So what did I think? Despite it's lack of Lynchian mind trips it is still very well made with excellent photography and great acting from both leads. It is almost impossible to not like the compassionate doctor or the sensitive John Merrick.
I'm sure the film contains many secrets but the ones that were easy enough for me to spot was the symbolic significance of the cathedral model that John builds which may be a reference to The Hunchback of Notre Dame or that John is simply Jesus as hinted at in the ending phrase "nothing will die" and there are quite a few similarities between those two stories as well.
A lesser obvoius symbol is that elephants are usually said to be wise and intelligent which John Merrick also is.
You can still tell that David Lynch directed this movie without the help from imdb or the credits, there are a few weird mind fog trip things going on just to a fitting degree and in appropriate places. The film also keeps you at the edge of your seat to the very end because you are always waiting for terrible things to happen to John and you really don't want it to.
in other words I recommend you watch it.
//Johannes T