Blue Velvet. Critical Review
Review of Blue Velvet, Film Directed by David Lynch
Exposed: Voyuerism from Shadows into Shadows
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Blue Velvet is a bizarre neo-noir film that explores raw themes of sadomasochism, voyuerism and violence. Lynch skillfully weaves his vision of a “strange world” into the small, seemingly unadulterated town of Lumberton, unraveling a human darkness that, much with the same impulses as the protagonist, one takes a guilty pleasure in viewing.
The first hour of the film, supremely shot and structured, will be the crux of this analysis.
The opening scene hypnotises the viewer with a disturbing transition of mood, the cheery images of undisturbed daily life giving way to the building tension in the twisted waterhose and culminating in the collapse of the old man. This bizarre scene’s symbolism is taken further with the progressive deepening of the camera beaneath the grass towards scurrying beetles. Part of a recuurent bug motif, they represent ingeniously the emergence of a dark world concealed beneath the surface of calm.
Reinforcing the transition subtly, the perfect morning of the family-friendly neighbourhood is diverted to a hard-edged afternoon footage of a bricked industrial region. The location of the forest walk up to the hospital isolates the protagonist and tranforms the frightening discovery of the ear into an adventure of intrigue.
Ingenuously symbolised by the camera’s tunneling into canal of the dismembered ear, Jeffery’s well-enunciated curiosity, parallelled to his later voyuerism, leads him down a descent into a dark underworld. Lynch develops this tension further with protacted scenes containing an ominouslyly pitch black background, as featured even as Jeffery becomes increasingly entangled in the mystery; both when he advances towards the detective’s home, and when his daughter embroils him with information about the “singer”.
Yet, Lynch draws an interesting contrast
Exposed: Voyuerism from Shadows into Shadows
_____________________________________________________________
Blue Velvet is a bizarre neo-noir film that explores raw themes of sadomasochism, voyuerism and violence. Lynch skillfully weaves his vision of a “strange world” into the small, seemingly unadulterated town of Lumberton, unraveling a human darkness that, much with the same impulses as the protagonist, one takes a guilty pleasure in viewing.
The first hour of the film, supremely shot and structured, will be the crux of this analysis.
The opening scene hypnotises the viewer with a disturbing transition of mood, the cheery images of undisturbed daily life giving way to the building tension in the twisted waterhose and culminating in the collapse of the old man. This bizarre scene’s symbolism is taken further with the progressive deepening of the camera beaneath the grass towards scurrying beetles. Part of a recuurent bug motif, they represent ingeniously the emergence of a dark world concealed beneath the surface of calm.
Reinforcing the transition subtly, the perfect morning of the family-friendly neighbourhood is diverted to a hard-edged afternoon footage of a bricked industrial region. The location of the forest walk up to the hospital isolates the protagonist and tranforms the frightening discovery of the ear into an adventure of intrigue.
Ingenuously symbolised by the camera’s tunneling into canal of the dismembered ear, Jeffery’s well-enunciated curiosity, parallelled to his later voyuerism, leads him down a descent into a dark underworld. Lynch develops this tension further with protacted scenes containing an ominouslyly pitch black background, as featured even as Jeffery becomes increasingly entangled in the mystery; both when he advances towards the detective’s home, and when his daughter embroils him with information about the “singer”.
Yet, Lynch draws an interesting contrast