Written and Directed by David Lynch (Eraserhead)

Starring:
Kyle MacLachlan as Jeffrey Beaumont
Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth
Laura Dern as Sandy Williams
Isabella Rossellinni as Dorothy Vallens

As Reviewed by James Brundage

Most of the people who follow Lynch, his devoted cult of watchers, got hooked with the two season "Twin Peaks" television series. For them, the line "She's dead... wrapped in plastic" will always have a special place in their heart. The newer generation of Lynch watchers were witness to Wild at Heart and Lost Highway. The older generation, his mainstream watchers, probably saw The Elephant Man and Dune. His very first devotees: Eraserhead and Stick Figures Getting Sick.

Although Lost Highway was my first exposure to the director, it was not what made me fall in love with him. What made me love the director, love his talent for storytelling, his dark humor and quiet essayistic nature, was his 1986 independent smash Blue Velvet.

Blue Velvet was described to me by an avid Lynch fan that works at Bristol-Myers Squibb in New Jersey as "about as weird as they get." Being a student of the strange, that piqued my interest.

It opens up with a picturesque small town, then shows a man having a stroke. His son, Jeffery Beaumont (MacLachlan) comes home from college in order to comfort his mother and aunt. What he finds instead is the most primal thing that we all love: a mystery.

This mystery comes while walking in a field. He sees a wine bottle near a shack, begins throwing rocks at it, and bends down to pick another rock up only to find a human ear.

He informs the police, who really can't do much in the way of investigating. On his way out of the house of the detective working on the case, a woman walks out of the darkness and asks: "Are you the one that found the ear?"

This is Sandy Williams (Dern), the detective's daughter, who becomes equally enraptured in the mystery. She informs him that she listens in on conversations that her father has had, and that the name Dorothy Vallens (Rossellini) has come up a number of times.

Together, the two set it upon themselves to unravel the mystery behind the ear. Along the way Jeffrey is drawn into a dark and violent world, filled with machocistic women and sadistic killers (Dennis Hopper showing his true acting prowess). At the same time Jeffrey finds himself torn between two women: a completely erotic relationship with Dorothy Vallens and an increasingly strong love for Sandy Williams.

Blue Velvet is out there in both style and substance. As a mystery, it excels the art form, throws out the templates and draws brand new ones. Every modern cinema mystery of quality I have found has had some traces of this film in it. As a raw story, it comes off as completely surreal. Although you have a gritty realism to the story itself, Lynch succeeds in shocking the unshockable: the entire film seems like a terribly realistic nightmare.

As far as style is concerned, the entire film is done in a very subversive directorial style. Lynch over-lights his days for an industrial look, an America so superficially beautiful it begins to get on your nerves. At night, he employs classic noir techniques: little to no lighting to make the film terrifying. He also films violence in slow-motion in order to make it seem stranger, uses classic symbolism and makes fun of it at the same time. Also, from a sound aspect, whenever something truly climatic happens, instead of a false note of music, the film's volume increases and a droning sound comes on, adding to the sense that this is all a dream and that, more than anything, you want to wake up.

The story is best expressed as a brilliant satire of small-town life, which Lynch has a tendency to be fascinated with (i.e. Twin Peaks). The two storylines -- one of the mystery and one of the romance between Jeffery and Sandy -- intertwine like snakes and both contain a dark, off-kilter humor. At one point, as Jeffery is going to sneak into Dorothy's apartment at night to search it, Sandy remarks to him: "I don't know whether you're a detective or a pervert." Jeffery smiles and responds: "That's for me to know and you to find out."

The surreal nature also inserts itself into the suspense. Perhaps the oddest scene in the film comes as Frank Booth beats up Jeffery to the tune of "Candy-Colored Sandman." Although I have not seen this film for about two months, the look in Frank's eyes is still present in my head as he recites to Jeffery: "In dreams I walk with you \ In dream, I talk to you \ In dreams, you're mine... all the time." The look, reader, is one of pure evil.

The only flaw in the film that I have been able to discern with about a dozen viewings is that of the archetypes that are employed, which is only a personal opinion seeing as the characters were designed to be that way.

All fans of mysteries and independent films should see this one. If you're a Lynch fan and have missed it, make sure you check it out. If you're not a Lynch fan, watch it and you will become one.