Blue Velvet (1986) Review

Blue Velvet (1986)

Blue Velvet follows Jeffrey, who after finding a severed ear, teams up with a detective’s daughter to solve the mystery.

Every time I think “David Lynch can’t outdo himself” he does, tenfold. Hot off the heels of Dune, which seemed like a relative disappointment, this was Lynch’s return to form and it is just as weird and unimaginably twisted as can be. It strikes a middle ground between being both a love story and a mystery and you can see a lot of the underlying elements of what will become Twin Peaks start to form here.
There is an innocence in Jeffrey and Sandy, as evidenced by the reoccurring subject of their dreams, something the film allows them to have at the sacrifice of their innocence though. It all seems to take place outside of reality however, with the suburban life marred with irony and bliss, while there is a cold, realism to the sexual bondage and masochism shown, something that is innately Lynch. The dialogue focuses on things that shouldn’t matter but are metaphors for the deeper, darker aspects of the movie, forcing you to think.

The cast is also a real treat, giving us Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, and Kyle MacLachlan. It was fascinating how the characters all want or appear as one thing, but offset in a way. MacLachlan detests the cruelness of society, yet slowly morphs into a mirrored image of Hopper’s monstrous, sadomasochistic, and downright terrifying villain. With Dern, we also get the ideal American dream girl, compared to the tortured, raped, but masochistic Rossellini, who is the image of what the world does to those perfect girls, chewing them up and spitting them out then wondering why they’re so fucked up.

Blue Velvet, directed masterfully by David Lynch, in a haunting, oft distributing way, is a coming of age story of sorts that journeys through sexual discovery and the cruelness and irony of the American dream, in search of not maturity, but to rid themselves of the dark desires and compulsions that we all contain. Lynch brings those dark aspects to the surface in what is one of his most oddly, reality bending, raw pictures to date.

8.6/10