Blue Velvet
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Movie Reviews of Blue Velvet
Movie Review: Good Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
I had never heard of this movie until I was watching a TV show that was describing the 10 best crime movies. I ordered it new and was pleased with the movie and the prompt delivery from Amazon.Movie Review: The Hardy Boys investigate a real mystery
Summary: 5 Stars
After his father has a stroke, clean-cut college student Jeffery Beaumont (Kyle McLaughlin) returns home to help out in his father's hardware store. While walking in a field one day, he discovers a severed ear which leads him and girlfriend, policeman's daughter, Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), on a Hardy Boys-esque investigation that takes them to the dark underbelly of their perfect American small town existence.
Imagine a 1930's film noir with sex and drugs, and the Hardy Boys as detectives, and you've got a pretty good idea of what this film is about. "Blue Velvet" takes standard crime film elements that you have seen dozens of times before and combines them into one of the most original films you have ever seen in your life. The central theme of this film is the battle between all that is wholesome, or good and that which is corrupt, or evil. The side of good is represented by Jeffery Beaumont, sort of a real-world Frank Hardy and a forerunner to McLaughlin's "Twin Peaks" character, Dale Cooper. Between Jeffery Beaumont and Dale Cooper, to me, McLaughlin is the face of innocence and this film is all about the loss of that innocence and its redemption. On the side of evil is drug-addicted, expletive-spewing Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), truly the most frightening and disturbing villain ever.
"Blue Velvet" is a very nasty, in-your-face movie that is most certainly not for all tastes (I read on the internet that many people walked out when this film was first shown in cinemas and I can see why). It is also a very weird film (although, by the standards set by David Lynch's other movies, this film is positively normal) and many scenes in it are designed to be endured rather than enjoyed. Yet, unlike many other similarly dark films, I didn't come out of this film feeling dirty (something that I felt after seeing "Sin City"). I felt that, just like Jeffery Beaumont, I had journeyed to the underworld but had returned, and in the course of that return, any evil that I had encountered had been washed away. For this reason, if you do see this film, I recommend that you stay with it until the end. The middle might be bad, but in the end, all is restored.
Movie Review: A controversial and beautiful film from a master
Summary: 5 Stars
"Blue Velvet" is a take on film noir with typical Lynch weirdness, unique atmosphere and breathtaking cinematic work. Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) comes home from college to visit his sick and bed-ridden father who had a tragic accident. Having made a startling discovery (to be more exact, a human ear lying in the grass), out of sheer boredom and driven by passion for adventure Jeffrey decides to proceed with this mystery and gets involved with a night-club singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) living in a shabby apartment building, which is somewhat incongruous to the sleepy suburban paradise of Lumberton.
Dorothy, a queer mixture, of "damsel in distress" and "femme fatale", is in a middle of a life and death situation involving her husband and son. She is subjected to sexual abuse and other forms of violence by a psychopathic man named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) and his demented associates. Jeffrey's further investigation reveals that one of the police detectives is also involved in the criminal activities of the gang, and that means that he will have to deal with these people using his own resources. He confides in Sandy, a good-natured and sweet blonde, whose father is a hard-working and honest policeman. Sandy is obviously fascinated by Jeffrey's recklessness, but her level-headed nature prevents her from becoming his full-time accomplice and ditching her boy-friend, at least, not until later on.
Stylistically, Blue Velvet is a precursor to Lynch's notorious collaboration with Mark Frost - TV series "Twin Peaks". These creations share a lot of elements including the small town setting, a dangerously attractive brunette, oldies often played under disturbing circumstances, dreamy angel-like singers (remember Julie Cruise in Twin Peaks), flame and even the famous red curtains. Although "Blue Velvet" is just a thriller without any supernatural context, somehow you expect the Dwarf to pop up and start dancing at any time.
The blue velvet is a leitmotif of the film. "Blue Velvet" is a song that Dorothy has to perform in a club every night looking straight in the eyes of her tormentors. Dorothy also wears a blue velvet gown at home, and Frank has a fetish for blue velvet using it in his perverted sexual games. Blue velvet is a symbol of mystery, obsession and hidden passions lurking beneath the exterior of men.
Lynch uses different colors for the scenes taking place in the normal world of American suburbia versus Dorothy's apartment or Ben's house. Lumbertown is depicted as idyllic joyful place with bright yellow tulips against the white fence and bright green grass. Everything involving Dorothy or the criminals is shot either in the darkness or unnaturally striking colors. The director makes an interesting application of the contrast between the two women in protagonist's life. Dangerous and seductive Dorothy is a voluptuous brunette wearing blue or red gowns, whereas Sandy is a slender blonde, your typical American next door cheerleader.
Kyle MacLahlan is cute, adorable and gives an incredibly convincing performance. His love-making scenes with Rossellini are tasteful, beautiful and disturbing at the same time. Rosselini was quite adequate, especially if we take into account the complexity of the character, but I couldn't get rid of this thought in the back of my head that Sherilyn Fenn would have been much more memorable. Perhaps, I am irreparably spoiled by Twin Peaks... However, Rossellini's was Lynch's favorite at the time, so we can understand being a little bit biased here.
Dennis Hopper is way over the top as Frank Booth, being psychotic, violent and pitiful at the same time. His every appearance on the screen is a an avalanche of emotions, swear-words and craziness. He is a dangerous man and Jeffrey who stepped in his way knows that the only way for him to stay alive is to eliminate Frank.
Lynch decided to end this flick on a joyful note. Everything goes back to normal in Lumberton, Jeffrey and Sandy will probably go on to have a long and wholesome life together with children on the way. Dorothy is hugging her son in the final moments of the movie, and the robin as the symbol of good is devouring the bug just as in Sandy's dream. However, despite the obviously happy ending and triumph of the good over the evil, the final scenes have such a dream-like and surreal quality that one cannot help suspecting that something bad is doomed to happen again. With Lynch you never know for sure...
Movie Review: A Classic Modern Film Noir
Summary: 5 Stars
Blue Velvet is my favorite David Lynch film, and one of my favorite films of all time. In many ways it's a disturbing film, but not so much because of the violence (compared to today's standards), but because of the characters and the darkness of the human condition that they expose. It's worth watching Dennis Hopper channel Frank Booth, the sociopathic drug dealer who pretty much owns the film. Also great are Dean Stockwell, Isabella Roselinni, Kyle McLaughlin, and Laura Dern, all great actors and actresses who make the film the classic that it is. A must for film students.Movie Review: Unmissible, nightmarish and unforgettable classic
Summary: 5 Stars
The brutally honest performances, articulate and beautiful style, and the movie's sexual and violent shock value save the story from becoming too stale or uninspiring. Blue Velvet, all these years later, still seems completely original, invigorating and unsurpassed. It wouldn't matter if every film after Blue Velvet in David Lynch's career sucked, because Blue Velvet will always be his masterpiece. The things, along with Twin Peaks, will remember him for.
Everyone assumes that Blue Velvet opens with the infamous ear-in-the-grass scene, but the film's opening is even more disturbing than that. A suburban fantasia of white picket fences, blood-red roses, waving fireman, happy children and a man watering his lawn gives way to the disturbing moment when the watering man collapses and the camera pans down to dirt level where a number of horrific insects are scrabbling in the dirt at the base of the lawn. The soundtrack changes from Leave It to Beaver-style music to the loud, gnawing, electric saw-like noises emitted by the creatures. Only subsequent to this scene does Jeffrey Beaumont (a wide-eyed, snoopy Kyle MacLachlan) find the ear in a field of overgrown weeds.
The ear leads Jeffrey through a sordid underworld involving kidnapping, masochism, drug-dealing, and murder. But while there's a whole lot of plot in Blue Velvet, Lynch's more elemental concern is with unearthing the truth behind the façade (i.e. showing what lurks under the lawn). Even the blue velvet dress that chanteuse Dorothy Valens (Isabella Rossellini) wears hides a secret -- namely, the bruises on her body which are delivered by the vile Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper, in the role that brought him back to the limelight).
When Jeffrey asks the niave Sandy (Laura Dern), the prim girl on whom he has a crush, why there is so much trouble in the world, the answer is clear -- without it, our lives would be far duller. Jeffrey himself admits that he loves a mystery and the curiosity that his desire entails is the same one that fuels Lynch's own vision. When Frank says to Jeffrey, "You're like me," it could be Lynch speaking to the audience. We want to know more, even if what we find out hurts or is ugly. Like the scene of an accident, we cannot look away. Fueled by a vibrant and always-surprising surrealism, Blue Velvet reminds us that the dreams and fantasies of our subconscious are dangerous and thrilling; it's surface reality that is mundane.
This is definitely a film worth watching multiple times. It gets better and better on every viewing. There are so many questions, and at the same time, so many answers, which seem to bring up more questions. Blue Velvet is a timeless, unmissible film.