David Lynch
Blue Velvet

There are films that, on a gut level, leave something behind.

You can’t always understand exactly what it is, nor what exactly it stems from, but you can perceive it clearly. Blue Velvet fits perfectly into that category. With a plot complicated to just the right extent and bizarre enough to remain plausible but not trivial, the ingredients for a good film are already largely in place. Or rather, for a good subject, which this movie certainly does not lack. For a good film, you also need a good screenplay! It’s there. A fitting soundtrack. What more could we want than Blue Velvet everywhere, in a film with a title like that? Remarkable direction? It's hard to ask for better than what Lynch achieves in this work. An interesting conceptual and metacognitive dimension? Let’s see.

Going deeper, the direction immediately deserves praise. There’s something about watching Lynch’s film that, from the first shot, leaves no doubt about the directorial quality of the work. Some flashes of genius here and there, interspersed with wonderfully rich aesthetic scenes and a few touches of class even in the more conventional scenes. All of this and much more that Lynch can mix into his directorial craft make the film shine primarily from this perspective. It’s even in the smallest details that make the difference in a work of art: does the previous dialogue end with the word scissors? ZAC, let’s start the next scene with a tape being cut with scissors. The extensive use of dissolves also highlights the uniqueness of certain directorial choices. Even from a screenplay perspective, the film lacks nothing, with a perfect counterpoint between images and words, between silences and sounds. The intriguing plot is magnificently orchestrated and staged by actors who are undoubtedly up to the task of embodying the well-characterized masks created by the director. Naturally, a great actor without a good director as a foundation is not much, but a film by an excellent director without capable actors would also leave much to be desired. That is absolutely not the case here, and with a cast that includes actors like Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini, it’s hard to be disappointed. The soundtrack, as mentioned, is contextual to the film since, with the story centering on the misfortunes of a singer, even the musical scenes acquire a certain importance. However, the original tracks also fit well overall with the film’s enigmatic and engaging scenes. Lastly, praise is due to the film’s ability to engage the viewer. You might check your watch a couple of times in the first half-hour. The next time you do, it will be twenty minutes from the end, wondering how over an hour passed so absurdly quickly.

And here we come to another fundamental point: the genre of the film. We are facing a plot that is undoubtedly imbued with a thriller spirit as pure as can be, yet we cannot deny the presence of a certain emphasis on character development, in a way akin to a coming-of-age novel, and also a particular erotic component and social critique. In short, surrounding a deeply thriller-rooted core, we find elements of a completely different nature, which paint diverse nuances on the overall structure of the work. The suspenseful scenes are not lacking, but they are certainly not redundant, as they are cleverly separated by sections that almost feel like an American TV series, much more frivolous and light, as well as simple in formal terms. A balanced film, then, also strengthened by a component of psychological investigation of the characters that should not be underestimated: we find ourselves in scenes that rightly lead the film’s somewhat naïve (but not too much) protagonists to ask themselves why the world is so absurd, unjust, wrong, if you will. Such situations are often dictated by the incoherence, madness, and despair of people in extreme, painful, or powerful situations. These are the main ingredients that make a person unbalanced, and in the film, we find an abundant handful of them that serve as excellent exemplification elements.

Although this work undoubtedly offers some interesting insights from this latter point of view, it also raises the question of what it wants to represent beyond an excellent, formally exquisite, and substantially well-orchestrated thriller. The most evident metaphorical messages lead to scenes that are certainly not among the most original or fascinating, but the general impression is that, if we wanted to pinpoint a lacking aspect in this film, it might be this. It's not that all films need to be metaphysical, heaven forbid, but Blue Velvet generally gives the impression of being an excellently thought-out thriller, masterfully contaminated and beautifully crafted yet stopping at its earthly dimension and not aspiring to particular meta-reflections (except for the psychological component of certain characters). A pity, but we shouldn’t make a drama out of it, as we are still faced with a film that absolutely deserves to be seen and will surely leave you with that irrationally precious something that great films always manage to bestow.