Blue Velvet **** of ****
Blue Velvet inspired critical praise and discuss when released in 1986. Siskel gave it four stars and Ebert gave in one. Ebert said that director David Lynch was "more sadistic than the (Dennis) Hopper character." To put that in prespective you need to know that Hopper plays a sick twist who kidnapped this woman's (Isabella Rossellini) husband and son, and now is using her as a sex slave. Hopper is also a druged-up maniac who enjoys humiliating Rossellini, like a truly draining scene where she is inflicted with public nudity. Ebert felt that the story if handled satire-free would have been a dark and emotional film, but with the satire the film was demeaning.
This is a demeaning film toward Rossellini, who seems to reach very personal emotions in front of a crowd. We're the crowd. This film is very hard to take for those not comportable with themselves and their desires. This film is very voyueristic and disturbing to even the most kinky voyuers and yet it is so emotionally powerful and contains such richly, dark satire, that even the wary should take a look.
The story begins with a perfect, yet shallow, suburbian street. The street seems to be saturated with bright watercolors. A nice, old man waters his lawn, looking warm and deep. This nice man collapses and we follow him down. Then we go further down below the grass and see hungry insects eating away like grotesque monsters. And there the satire begins.
The man's son (Kyle MacLachlan) shows up to visit his dad and on a nice day stroll he finds a severed ear on the ground. This propells him to the police and further investigation for himself. Along the way he meets a nice girl his age (Laura Dern) and they're both entralled to investigate for themselves. The plot evolves in a surefired way and never mis-steps, with scenes of taunt suspense and a truly wicked set of characters led by Gar (Dean Stockwell) and Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
Anyone put off by the plot description should not indulge in this film because it is really much worse than I made it sound. The violence and sex is gruesome and troubling and the fears described in this film are equal to ERASERHEAD's fear of children. On the flip side if you do deside to visit this film you will have a chance to see one of the best films of the eighties, and one hell of an emotional experience.
The director and screenwriter David Lynch is quite a weird person and seems to be in touch with the dark voyueristic side of himself. I saw a recent documentary called THE PREETY AS A PICTURE: ART OF DAVID LYNCH in which he shared his paintings and love of art. A typical day in the life of Lynch seemed to be carving a scull of plaster, filling it with ham and cheese and photographing the ants hollowing it out. "All forms of decay are worth looking at" explains Lynch. The Decay of ham or in BLUE VELVET the decay of suburbian life.
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