Review of Blue Velvet (1986) by Troy F — 07 Jun 2012

Open. Camera pans down to a white picket fence with roses in bloom. Local firemen wave to citizens out to get the morning paper, and children cross the street on their daily trip to school. It's a beautiful day. In the midst of this idyllic small town, in the backyard of a quaint white house, an older gentleman waters and maintains the lawn. As he showers over the turf, he notices a snag in the hose wrapped around a branch outside flower bed, and water swelling from the faucet. The man casually pulls on the hose, struggling to undo the knot, but only in vain. The faucet continues to swell, and more and more the restraining force causes water to burst from the end of the bib. More and more the water swells, until the faucet is violently rattling from side to side. Suddenly, the man's head quickly contorts to the back side of his neck, he stiffens, completely paralyzed with pain as he falls to the ground unable to breath or call for help. He is having a seizure. The camera pans over him, moving closer, deep into the manicured lawn. Under the neatly cut grass, beneath the preen surface, something terrible crawls it's way through the underlying darkness. Welcome to Lumberton.

David Lynch at his most disturbing, most perverse, most violent, and yet most captivating. Blue Velvet draws you into it's clutches. Persuades you into the dark, and then turns you face to face with the consequences. The amazing thing though, is that Lynch, like a siren, actually manages to provoke your interest and use it in order to steer you into the cliffs. Just like the protagonist, Jeffrey Beaumont, you, the viewer, are curious to know what's going on. And like some sick twisted vicarious wishfulness, Jeffrey falls victim to that curiosity; he goes were you want him to go, he does what you want him to do, like a pupet to a hand he consents to your conduction. And then he gets in trouble. And it's all. Your. Fault. Really, the amount of control DL has over is audience is staggering, he's right there with you, tapping into your fear, contriving the only thing it is that you don't want to see happen. It's alarming, and it's so fucking creepy, and it's SO GOOD! Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth is a performance wrung out from the depth of all mighty HELL!!

\m/ (^o^) \m/.

Frank and Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) oppose each other like hatred and love to the square jawed Jeffrey,(Kyle MacLachlan) with the alluring Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) as the sickness that spreads between them all.

Loved every minute of it.