Review of Blue Velvet (1986) by Nikolay R — 30 Sep 2011

Frank Booth: In dreams, I walk with you. In dreams, I talk to you. In dreams, you're mine, all the time. Forever. .

"It's a strange world.".

Holy Shit! I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually liked this movie. This is shocking because I might have hated David Lynch more than anyone. I've seen most of his movies and before seeing Blue Velvet the only one I really liked was The Elephant Man. This isn't nearly as good as The Elephant Man though, because it still has the elements of Lynch films that piss me off. The great thing about The Elephant Man is those elements are missing. But this is the first time the strangeness of David Lynch didn't ruin one of his films.

His strange elements are still there in Blue Velvet and there were scenes that I absolutely hated. For the most part though, I did enjoy this mystery, suspense film. Kyle MacLachan was really good. Dennis Hopper radiated with energy in his crazy villain role. And almost as shocking as me liking a Lynch film, was me not entirely hating a Laura Dern performance. Now, just like with Lynch, I'm still not a fan. I just see that they aren't complete shit all the time. .

The plot is about as weird as you'd expect from Lynch. A young college student, Jeffrey, comes back to his home town after his father is taken to the hospital. Walking through a field he finds a human ear and takes it to the local police. Then for some reason, he gets himself wrapped up into the mystery of the murder. I will say that Lynch's movies always have a strong energy about them and this one is no different. The reason I like this more than the average Lynch film, is that he doesn't go to insane with adding random garbage and doesn't try to make the film totally incomprehensible. .

This movie almost makes me want to go back and re-watch all of the Lynch films I hate. Again, like with The Elephant Man, it almost makes me hate Lynch more because when he worries about telling a story more than putting a bunch of weird, random scenes in a movie to make it more stylish and strange; he is a great filmmaker. Too bad he couldn't do this more often.