Blue Velvet (1986, Lynch)

Depraved, eccentric nonsense filmed and told in Lynch’s trademark virtuoso visual style and control. Dennis Hopper raises the bar for the term ’Over the top’ so high he gives it an entirely new meaning. Hopper is everyones nightmare figure amplified. Don’t look for a plot here, there isn’t one. There is also little meaning to everything that happens, but of course people (and especially crazy fans of the manic Lynch) will find ways to justify everything. Lynch is trying to tell us every household is twisted, perverted and sick behind their picket fenced lives. Thus the film becomes about the evil that men are capable of, and then some.

It's really just a detective story told in a twisted, shocking manner. Laura Dern is pretty for once. Eventually becomes a case of Hardy boys detective story gone bad....very bad. worldly innocence cannot last for very long in this (and Lynch’s world) and he has some fun at the expense of rape scenes, 50’s TV talk etc. Some may find the material campy and funny, but to me it seemed like bad satire and a sorry excuse to humiliate characters on screen. Lynch was crazier and better in the spectacularly dark ’Lost Highway’.

Rating: 3/5