Blue Velvet is the first Lynch I saw. I must admit though, I was sort of expecting coffee spewing monsters or something, but alas, that is not what Blue Velvet is. The movie is actually seemingly straightforward plot wise, and is exteriorly a voyeuristic mystery. However, under this exterior is so many different layers, elements, themes, and there is a great underlying, ominous tone to the entire movie.
The best way to describe this tone is the opening sequence of the picturesque 50s suburbia. The camera slowly drifts down from the brightly lite superbs to the sharply green grass, and as the camera sinks into the ground everything grows darker, and a swarm of insects appears – this scene sums up the main theme of Blue Velvet, that is not everything is as it appears on the outside.
It is themes like this which are thoughrly explored that make Blue Velvet so intriguing. Almost everywhere you look in the movie you can pull back the curtain and discover something. It is quite complex and after my first viewing I do not believe I fully grasped everything it proposed to me, but I was captivated none the less. The film is actually very slow moving, and fairly long, but I was never once bored and it had a great tension to it. It was very much a suspense film in many aspects. When I think about it, it actually is quite the mishmash of various genres, but it succeeds in pulling everything off with a gentle finesse.
Besides this however, there was a strikingly entertaining performance by Dennis Hopper as the gas mask, hyperventilating, domineering, joy-riding villain. As is with Welle’s performance in The Third Man, it is just simply engaging to watch his performance, but at the same time I was almost scared by the character. There was something terrifyingly primal about the persona of Frank Booth that is hard to explain. Besides Hopper’s performance however, we also get great acts from Dorothy Valens, Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern who give their characters various edges they require to be dynamic. My only complaint is Dern looked like she was 30 even though she was apparently in high school. Regardless of this, everyone contributes quality performances, and Hopper simply exceeds beyond the call of duty.
Keeping the entire boat a float is David Lynch at the helm, giving Blue Velvet a decidedly creepy visual style. From the very opening shot he captured and held my attention and the imagery overall seems very unique and epitomizes everything that the film stands for. The cinematography and overall direction was almost like a metaphor for the themes in the movie at times, and at others they are gateways to the narrative themes and suggestions, and overall the imagery is just chilling and had me fascinated. I will defiantly be investigating Mulholland Dr and Elephant Man in the near future based on the visuals in this.
One of my initial complains however was with the ending. It was just so American and Hollywood-ized, where they happily live ever after. But then I read Ivan the Terrible’s review for Blue Velvet and I realized what Lynch was really saying – even after everything had been revealed to the characters and what they had seen in the dark underbelly of society, which surely should have scared them forever, they decided to ignorantly disregard their experience and just forget about it all, pretending it does not exist when in fact it was ever present. The ending to me was saying how humans generally try to just ignore the horrible things we know are going on, but for some reason we try to suppress this knowledge. Yet another layer, and I only really realized this one when someone else suggested it.
I actually need another viewing to fully understand everything that was presented in Blue Velvet. It was very intricate and I am almost positive a couple things went right past my head. But for now I give Blue Velvet a high score for the many themes it well presented, the suspenseful and ominous undertones, and they fact that it held my attention with a nice grip for pretty well the entire run time. I have opened the door labeled Lynch, and have taken the first step in a beginning adventure into his filmography, and I love it.
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