Blue Velvet

Allright, so I'm not exactly the coolest person on the world, and I didn't watch this movie until tonight.

First things first: I think it's sub-par. Quite puzzled of all the rave reviews in fact. Seems like a mediocre morality tale to me. The picture perfect sleepy small town is just too...picture perfect. The wholesome girl-next-door seems like a facsimile from a director's steaotypes handbook (and way too old for a teenager). And the dream about robin, man, that's corny with a capital C. No, I don't mean eternal hope is corny. I only mean that the way the movie depicts it is not convincing. Some fans call it surreal. Well, that's definitely a way to spin it:)

Now, the kinky side of town. Yes, that Frank dude is one heck of a psyco. Yes, he and his crooner sidekick do give me the creeps. However, these folks don't seem like real people, and hence real threat, to me. I mean who in the real world would have worn a yellow jacket anyway? I gues the technicolor scheme does give the film a strange polish, but it also pulls apart the two sides of the coin, or shall we say town? This is supposed to be a darker, seedier side of life. But it only seems like another movie being cut into the wrong place. These people are also so weird, due to the holes in the plot, that the whole thing fails to strike terror in me. The images are outstanding. But I thought David Lynch's supposed to be a great director, not a great cameraman.

Casting. Kyle MacLachlan never quite convinces me as a small town boy. He has this strange and sombre look that seems to suggest a more cosmopolitan background. Isabella Rossellini looks out of place as well.

Let's digress a bit here. Hopper's role as Frank is supposed to be the evil incarnate. He's a fine actor. It's just that I never quite think people like these are the really scary ones. He is by definition rare and strange. He's one of them, not among us the good simple folks. In this sense, the movie cannot measure up to Lord of the flies. But then, few ever are. I believe that true evil lives among us, inside each and every one. Hitler is the evil incarnate, or so we are told. But without the acquiescence of the regular joes, the worst he could aspire to was to become a murderer. The tormenters at Abu-Ghraib were probably just stupid but ordinary kids before getting there. This over-emphasizing on the evil incarnate is a direct result of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It creats a world of black and white, of us vs. them, and in the end is counter-productive on gaining real insight into the human nature. We are, afterall, only human, warts and all.