Exactly how do
you describe a David Lynch movie? He is one of the few directors whose style is
so distinctive that his last name has become an adjective. According to Urban
Dictionary, the definition of Lynchian is: “having the same balance between the
macabre and the mundane found in the works of filmmaker David Lynch.” To see a
prime example of that adjective film lovers need look no further than Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), which does indeed
begin in the mundane before slowly sinking in macabre violence.
My first
introduction to the world of David Lynch was through his ground breaking, but
unfortunately interrupted, early 1990s TV series Twin Peaks. This was one of the first television shows to grab
viewers with a series-long mystery: who killed Laura Palmer? A mix of soap
opera, police procedural, and the supernatural, it is a unique show that showed
the darkness hidden in suburbia and remains influential to this day. Featuring
Kyle MacLachlan as an FBI investigator with a love for coffee and cherry pies, it
remains popular thanks to DVD sales and Netflix. If you are new to Lynch’s
world, it is a great way to enter his mind before going into the darker Blue Velvet, which touches on similar
themes and I also found on Netflix.
As far as
inciting incidents go, Blue Velvet
has a whopper that sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Law-abiding citizen
Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan, before Twin
Peaks) is home from college after his father has suffered a stroke. While
taking a walk in the beautiful suburbs of Lumberton, North Carolina, he takes a
shortcut in a vacant lot where he discovers a human ear. It is not every day
one discovers a piece missing from a fellow human being, but rather than walk
away in disgust Jeffrey carefully bags the ear and brings it to the police
station and makes a statement.
While re-telling
the incident to detective John Williams (George Dickerson) Jeffrey becomes re-acquainted
with his daughter Sandy (Laura Dern, looking at home in the beauty of the
American suburbs). That should be the end of that, but by spending time with
the detective’s daughter Jeffrey learns more about the case of the severed ear
and becomes dangerously curious. The movie’s production design initially
depicts a beautiful and sunny suburbia, but as Jeffrey becomes entangled in the
underworld that lies beneath things become darker and much seedier.
Two people shake
Jeffrey’s world to its core. First, there is Dorothy Vallens (Isabella
Rossellini) a seductive damsel in distress first seen singing Blue Velvet at a nightclub. Then there
is the man making her life a living hell, the deranged Frank Booth, played with
terrifying energy and rage by Dennis Hopper. A sadomasochist who has kidnapped
Dorothy’s loved ones, Frank enjoys bursting into her apartment to play sick
sexual games while inhaling God-knows-what from a small portable tank. This is
a disturbing scene to watch, and the voyeuristic feeling is enhanced by the
fact Jeffrey is seeing all this while hiding in Dorothy’s closet.
The rational
thing to do at this point would be to back away from this nightmare, but
Jeffrey cannot help himself from being drawn deeper into Dorothy’s troubles and
with Frank’s criminal gang. What makes it all even more disturbing is that
Dorothy is not your typical, or one might even say ideal, victim since she
entices Jeffrey to have sex with her, sometimes asking him to be violent. The
portrayal of Rossellini’s character and the way she is treated obviously
ruffled a lot of feathers when the movie was released, but nobody can deny it
is one hell of a performance. It must take some special inner strength to not
only do nude scenes, but also scenes of sexual violence that include Dennis
Hopper trying to hump you while calling you “Mommy” and him “Daddy.”
Is Blue Velvet an enjoyable movie? I
enjoyed it for the way it un-apologetically dives into the muck that sometimes
hides beneath peaceful suburban settings. There is also undeniable
entertainment value to Hopper’s performance, whether he is getting high on his
gas or raging at Jeffrey for daring to prefer Heineken beer instead of Pabst
Blue Ribbon. It is a well-made film with many moments of tension and it could
be described as a film noir, albeit with a heavy emphasis on the noir part.
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