Review of Blue Velvet (1986) by Brandon V — 22 Nov 2010
"It's a strange world.".
And David Lynch does a hell of an amazing job telling us how even a perfect world can, in fact, be very strange, with your amyl nitrate fetishes and an odd preference for Pabst Blue Ribbon. This film should appeal to me on many levels, including satirical, but to be honest, it's not that much of a satirical film. If it was, Lynch's been doing that since Eraserhead. And that's not a satire.
This film is about the misadventures of Jeffrey Beaumont, played in full form by Kyle MacLachlan, and how, after finding an ear in some field behind his home, he begins to see the darker side of suburbia, all accumulating in the disturbing, yet slightly funny, reveal of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), the perfect parody of the noir villain and THE noir villain.
How appropriate is this film for kids? Not so. It has sex, drugs, and a lot of profanities, almost all of them coming from the Pabst Blue Ribbon Bard's mouth itself.
Update: I noticed a lot of similarities between many of the characters, not just the Oedipal relationship between Jeffrey, Frank, and Dorothy. If Jeffrey and Sandy are Don and Dorothy, then Mike and his gang are the saccharine Frank and his gang. And when Dorothy first discovers Jeff in her closet, her threats mirror those that Frank would make minutes afterwards.
Second viewing made me 5-star it. It's that good.
This review of Blue Velvet (1986) was written by Brandon V on 22 Nov 2010.
Blue Velvet has generally received very positive reviews.
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