Blue Velvet opens onto the debatably idyllic paradise of the suburban town of Lumberton, complete with white picket fence, yet even from the outset this film creates an atmosphere riddled with tension and dark perversity.
David Lynch shifts effortlessly between the two opposing faces of Lumberton; comprising both the "wholesome goodness" of America in the 50´s and the darker undercurrents which permeate the surface of this pleasant facade. A concept expressed most clearly through the excellent shot of insect-ridden undergrowth beneath the well-tended surface of the front yard.
On the periphery this film is an amateur detective story, pursued by the curious Jeffrey Beaumont (the excellent Kyle Maclachlan) and his purer-than-pure neighbour Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), a throwback to Grease anyone? After finding a severed ear, which Jeffrey picks up with only a mild grimace of distaste, the prime candidate for a suspected murder falls to Dorothy Valens (Isabella Rossellini).
Fired by curiosity, and no doubt a fair bit of boredom thanks to a day job in his dad´s hardware store, he sets off to investigate her apartment. It is there he witnesses her violent rape which is as darkly comical as it is disturbing and he is drawn in by her intoxicating desperation.
She seems at first incredibly unstable, switching between a clingy child-like persona and then brandishing a knife wildly in his face; strangely though Isabella Rossellini's portrayal of what might appear from a distance to be a typical victim is neither pathetic or irritating but instead seductively powerful. It is perhaps this intrigue which makes him continue to visit her apartment, where her masochistic tendencies are quickly unearthed and his hinted at.
He is soon plunged into what is persistently referred to in the film as a "strange world" but still maintains normalcy through a friendly correspondence with the annoyingly cliched Sandy. He is also confronted with Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), Dorothy´s rapist, as the kidnapper of her husband and son and endures a night of oddly perverse violence at his hands. This is an unusual choice of villain; yes he bawls obscenities and is pleasured from pain but he also has to breathe into a gas mask whenever his heart rate goes up.
There are many points of black humour and a sense of disguised foreboding is cast over every moment of emotional intensity. This is an extremely well shot film with a cast to match the direction given by David Lynch, who´s Dune also featured Kyle Maclachlan in the leading role.
The song Blue Velvet from which the film owes its titles fits in perfectly with the entire atmosphere and rest assured its wandering melody will haunt you for a long time.
Despite the obvious themes of sex, violence and mystery they are handled in such a masterful way as to completely re-work their normal implications for a film. At first glance the ending is thoroughly irritating after two hours of such genius then the simple perfection of it slides into place; complimenting heavily the theory that the entire length of this film was simply a physical manifestation of Jeffrey´s subconscious and all the bizarre characters were only extensions of himself.
