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Review: Blue Velvet (1986)
What a freaky movie, in every sense of the word. I can't be sure that what I think happened actually happened, but the movie was very compelling because of that.
I would recommend this movie, but only to the right audience. This movie has a very eerie and intense atmosphere, plus some trigger warnings for violence and sexual violence.
Spoilers.
Story
This movie followed Jeffrey as he tried to investigate the origins behind a human ear he found. We saw the story entirely from Jeffrey's point of view, and I couldn't help but feel that Jeffrey had injected his own preconceived biases into the theory he'd put together. Even by the end of the movie, I felt that perhaps the story wasn't exactly as he thought it had been, and the ending felt too dreamlike.
I went to Wikipedia to see what the official version of the story was. It seemed to recognize Jeffrey's version of the story as legitimate. In his version of the story, Frank had kidnapped Dorothy's husband and son, and was also in cahoots with Detective Gordon, who would take down his rivals in his drug business.
At the climax of the movie, Dorothy escaped and told Jeffrey that her husband and son were being harmed. Jeffrey then went to Dorothy's apartment and saw Detective Gordon and Dorothy's husband Don dead. Later, Frank came to the apartment to hunt down Jeffrey but Jeffrey shot him in self defense. And then Detective Williams came by and got the situation under control.
At the end of the movie, Jeffrey and Sandy Williams seemed to be happily married. Jeffrey's father had recovered fully from his stroke, and there was a robin on window ledge, which according to Sandy, represented love. Dorothy was also seen reunited with her son.
This movie did feel a bit like a hero fantasy plus a fairy tale from Jeffrey's point of view. I think he wanted to believe that he'd uncovered a big conspiracy theory, that he'd killed the bad guy, and that he would live a happily ever after. The ending just seemed far too ideal and perfect for the weirdness that we'd seen during the movie.
My first question mark as I was viewing the movie was the relationship between Dorothy and Frank. At first, I thought they were just in a really weird BDSM relationship. That was because Dorothy had asked Jeffrey to hit her, suggesting that she enjoyed pain play. However, as we later learned more about Frank, I think it was reasonable to conclude that this was not a consensual relationship. Frank was a crazy, intimidating, scary man.
My second question mark was what Frank held over Dorothy. I kept wondering if Dorothy's child was real. Even when Frank had let Dorothy see her son Donnie, we never really saw him, and I was wondering whether Dorothy had a mental condition that Frank was taking advantage of.
In terms of the goings-on between Frank and Detective Gordon, I wasn't really following that as closely. Because Jeffrey had presented it to us in exposition (to Sandy) instead of showing us, it really felt like he was thinking this up, instead of letting us see how he came to his conclusion.
I can't help but think that there was some misunderstanding along the way that I couldn't see, because we were so caught up in Jeffrey's version of events.
And the end of the movie just felt like one big fairy tale. Sandy forgave Jeffrey for sleeping with another woman, Jeffrey killed Frank, Detective Williams came and told Jeffrey that everything was going to be all right. And the end, where Jeffrey and Sandy and all their family members lived together happily? That has got to be a dream sequence.
I don't really have a conclusion on what this story is about. I can take it at face value as the story of a student getting caught up in a crime up until the happily ever after. But I prefer to see it as a story of a student trying really hard to get involved in a crime, and trying to live out his hero fantasy. That's not to say I think this is a bad story. It was told extremely well. Every second I was just continuously wtf-ing because I had no idea what was happening and no idea what was going to happen. I knew to expect weirdness from David Lynch and this movie delivered.
Production
The direction style from David Lynch was really interesting. The biggest thing that stood out to me was how he framed rooms in his shots. He always presents a number of different things in the frame that when put together, look really strange, but also really fascinating. And the angles he uses were also very cool.
For example, whenever Jeffrey was spying from the closet in Dorothy's apartment, we would see the sitting room and then the long hall that led to the washroom. I thought that way of framing was so cool. And when Frank took Dorothy and Jeffrey to Ben's place, we saw a similar technique used, when the people in the house were sitting on the sofa, and to the left was the door to the room where Dorothy's son was supposed to be.
The acting was terrific. I'm not just talking about Dennis Hopper and Isabellia Rossellini as Frank and Dorothy. I'm also talking about Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, everybody else. This movie would not be what it was without both the strange characters and the totally normal characters.
Characters
Jeffrey Beaumont
Jeffrey was our point-of-view character. I fully expected him to be a psychopath. The fact that he was so interested in the severed ear was what made me suspicious of him. He seemed to really want a crime to happen, and he almost went looking in search of one. He pounced when Sandy gave him the information.
That being said, Jeffrey didn't behave super weirdly. He still knew how to act like a normal person lol. When Dorothy came on to him, I still think that Jeffrey behaved as a normal person would, though again, he was a little too interested, instead of trying to find an out as soon as he could.
In terms of Jeffrey's relationship with Sandy, I thought that he was going to use her to get more information, like a psychopath. And I was surprised that he didn't. I think he did truly like her, though maybe not in the traditional romantic way. I think he thought it was cool that she was spending all this time with him and showing interest in his hobby (crime).
In the dream sequence, the first most unlikely thing that I noticed was that Jeffrey's dad had made a full recovery. Before that, we'd mostly Jeffrey's dad confined in the hospital bed, and the fact that he made a full recovery seemed very suspicious. But I think it shows us that maybe Jeffrey isn't a psychopath. Maybe he does care for his father lol. In the sequence, his dad and Detective Williams were on friendly terms, as was one of his aunts and Mrs. Williams. His other aunt was hanging out with Sandy.
I think that the appearance of the robin was directly from Sandy. I feel that Jeffrey as a person probably didn't spend a lot of time thinking about love in the romantic way that Sandy would. So he infused Sandy's imagery with his own idea of what a happy ending should look like.
Dorothy Vallens
On Wikipedia, Dorothy Vallens was called a femme fatale, which surprised me. When we think of femme fatales, we think of women who have a little more agency in their lives. But I don't think Wikipedia is wrong. Dorothy was able to convince Jeffrey to fight for her, and in the end, he did.
In the movie, Dorothy did seem to be a very disturbed character, which makes total sense. Her husband and child were being held hostage by this psychopath who was simultaneously abusive and also had a mommy kink. It would be strange if she wasn't affected by it.
When we were first learning about Dorothy, I thought it was kind of odd that Frank was so taken with her singing because in my opinion, I really thought she was just an average singer. I think it really added to how strange the atmosphere of the movie was.
I think Dorothy liked Jeffrey because he was the one thing in her life that was not controlled by Frank. He actually seemed to be interested in her and her well-being. Unfortunately, due to the sexual violence she underwent, I think she also had a warped version of what relationships are like. She called Jeffrey her secret lover, but I don't think she necessarily loved him, her feelings for him might have been platonic.
In the end, Jeffrey's dream sequence showed Dorothy reunited with her son Donnie, which of course is what Jeffrey would have imagined to be her best possible scenario. However, we can't be sure if that was what happened. When Dorothy went to see her son at Ben's place, she left the room kind of lifeless. I wondered why that was. Was it because...Donnie wasn't alive anymore? If that was the case, however, it would be strange that she wouldn't have completely broken down. Maybe she was just sad to leave him? It's very up in the air.
Frank Booth
Frank was the psychopathic villain who was so creepy and freaky. The first time we saw him was when he came to Dorothy's apartment for sex. He alternated very quickly between his abusive "daddy" persona, and the "baby" persona that he goes into when he has the inhaler on. When he was in the baby persona, I think Dorothy might have called him "Donnie," which was what led me to believe that Dorothy's son Donnie might not have been real.
Anyway, Frank seemed to be a drug lord who was working with Detective Gordon, who would kill his business rivals, and tamper with evidence to help Frank.
Jeffrey interacted with Frank for the first time when he was caught at Dorothy's apartment. Frank took Jeffrey along and he behaved as we expected. He was the undisputed boss of his posse, but he behaved extremely erratically. You could never guess what he was going to do next, and that was what was frightening.
As mentioned, Frank had kind of a mommy kink, which to my surprise, he was going to act out right in front of Jeffrey and his posse in the car, until Jeffrey told him to leave Dorothy alone. The other weird thing about Frank was how easily he was moved by music. Jeffrey saw him watching Dorothy sing, and he was moved to tears while holding a strip of blue velvet. And at Ben's house, Frank was also nearly moved to tears while Ben was lipsyncing. It was very strange. And I don't think there needs to be a reason for any of this. It just shows us that Frank was an incredibly weird man.
At the end of the movie, Jeffrey found Detective Gordon and a man who was presumably Don (Dorothy's husband), both basically dead in Dorothy's apartment. We have no idea how they died. But considering Frank ended up being the "well-dressed man," he was the only suspicious person alive, and I guess it was reasonable to believe that he was behind the murders. Anyway, Frank wanted to hunt down Jeffrey but Jeffrey killed him before he got the chance.
Freaky villain, Frank is. He suited the atmosphere of this movie perfectly.
Sandy Williams
Sandy was Detective Williams' daughter, the person who first told Jeffrey about Dorothy Vallens. And she was the one outsider to all of this mess.
After a certain point, Jeffrey stopped including Sandy in his investigations, but he still shared his findings with her. I think their relationship grew because of this. There was no one else who was willing to listen to Jeffrey's findings like this. And perhaps Sandy found Jeffrey more interesting than her jock boyfriend Mike who only saw her as a possession (judging by how he acted when he confronted Jeffrey for taking his girlfriend, but wouldn't even speak to said girlfriend politely).
I actually thought Sandy was well-portrayed and likeable as a normal teenager. She was a senior, so 17-18 years old, and she acted like it. She jumped to saying that she loved Jeffrey very easily, which feels like teenager behaviour lol. When Dorothy called Jeffrey her secret lover, she was very upset with him, but she still recognized that Dorothy was in a lot of danger. In the end, she forgave him very easily, saying that she still loved him. That, I think is a bit up in the air as to whether she really forgave him that quickly. But in any case, she tracked down her dad to try to help Jeffrey as he went to Dorothy's apartment.
So even though Sandy had a minimal role in the story, I found her likeable. She was reasonably interested, as most people are in morbid mysteries. But she was also appropriately freaked out when the situation called for it.
Themes
I think most of the themes I saw in this movie were more visual in nature, so I don't have the best points to make for this part. Please consult Professor Wikipedia lol.
Of couse, blue velvet was a recurring theme. The robe that Dorothy wore was blue velvet, probably because Frank liked it. And presumably she sang Blue Velvet because of Frank's preferences as well.
Frank used an inhaler, but I somehow recall someone else using an inhaler too. I'll have to look it up later.
The robins at the end of the movie, as I mentioned, were likely Jeffrey injecting Sandy's viewpoints into his own idea of what happiness is like.
As I was reading Wikipedia, I thought the interpretation of this movie being about an Oedipal relationship was fascinating, with Jeffrey as the child and Frank and Dorothy as the parents. What is also fascinating is Frank's mommy kink, where he likes to act as a baby sometimes, which would kind of support the idea of Frank and Jeffrey being rivals. But then in this movie, Dorothy also has her own son Donnie, who is kind of her true love. Frank tries to fill that void but he can't really, because he reverts to his abusive behaviour so easily. And in the end, even Jeffrey acknowledges that Donnie is Dorothy's favourite.
Overall
What an eerie and freaky movie. I'm still happy I watched it. It was very fascinating. I was most impressed with the camera work, and the story telling style was really compelling too. The intense atmosphere isn't for everybody; I definitely found it very strange, but at least it had me interested.
I would recommend this movie, but only to the right audience. This movie has a very eerie and intense atmosphere, plus some trigger warnings for violence and sexual violence.
Spoilers.
Story
This movie followed Jeffrey as he tried to investigate the origins behind a human ear he found. We saw the story entirely from Jeffrey's point of view, and I couldn't help but feel that Jeffrey had injected his own preconceived biases into the theory he'd put together. Even by the end of the movie, I felt that perhaps the story wasn't exactly as he thought it had been, and the ending felt too dreamlike.
I went to Wikipedia to see what the official version of the story was. It seemed to recognize Jeffrey's version of the story as legitimate. In his version of the story, Frank had kidnapped Dorothy's husband and son, and was also in cahoots with Detective Gordon, who would take down his rivals in his drug business.
At the climax of the movie, Dorothy escaped and told Jeffrey that her husband and son were being harmed. Jeffrey then went to Dorothy's apartment and saw Detective Gordon and Dorothy's husband Don dead. Later, Frank came to the apartment to hunt down Jeffrey but Jeffrey shot him in self defense. And then Detective Williams came by and got the situation under control.
At the end of the movie, Jeffrey and Sandy Williams seemed to be happily married. Jeffrey's father had recovered fully from his stroke, and there was a robin on window ledge, which according to Sandy, represented love. Dorothy was also seen reunited with her son.
This movie did feel a bit like a hero fantasy plus a fairy tale from Jeffrey's point of view. I think he wanted to believe that he'd uncovered a big conspiracy theory, that he'd killed the bad guy, and that he would live a happily ever after. The ending just seemed far too ideal and perfect for the weirdness that we'd seen during the movie.
My first question mark as I was viewing the movie was the relationship between Dorothy and Frank. At first, I thought they were just in a really weird BDSM relationship. That was because Dorothy had asked Jeffrey to hit her, suggesting that she enjoyed pain play. However, as we later learned more about Frank, I think it was reasonable to conclude that this was not a consensual relationship. Frank was a crazy, intimidating, scary man.
My second question mark was what Frank held over Dorothy. I kept wondering if Dorothy's child was real. Even when Frank had let Dorothy see her son Donnie, we never really saw him, and I was wondering whether Dorothy had a mental condition that Frank was taking advantage of.
In terms of the goings-on between Frank and Detective Gordon, I wasn't really following that as closely. Because Jeffrey had presented it to us in exposition (to Sandy) instead of showing us, it really felt like he was thinking this up, instead of letting us see how he came to his conclusion.
I can't help but think that there was some misunderstanding along the way that I couldn't see, because we were so caught up in Jeffrey's version of events.
And the end of the movie just felt like one big fairy tale. Sandy forgave Jeffrey for sleeping with another woman, Jeffrey killed Frank, Detective Williams came and told Jeffrey that everything was going to be all right. And the end, where Jeffrey and Sandy and all their family members lived together happily? That has got to be a dream sequence.
I don't really have a conclusion on what this story is about. I can take it at face value as the story of a student getting caught up in a crime up until the happily ever after. But I prefer to see it as a story of a student trying really hard to get involved in a crime, and trying to live out his hero fantasy. That's not to say I think this is a bad story. It was told extremely well. Every second I was just continuously wtf-ing because I had no idea what was happening and no idea what was going to happen. I knew to expect weirdness from David Lynch and this movie delivered.
Production
The direction style from David Lynch was really interesting. The biggest thing that stood out to me was how he framed rooms in his shots. He always presents a number of different things in the frame that when put together, look really strange, but also really fascinating. And the angles he uses were also very cool.
For example, whenever Jeffrey was spying from the closet in Dorothy's apartment, we would see the sitting room and then the long hall that led to the washroom. I thought that way of framing was so cool. And when Frank took Dorothy and Jeffrey to Ben's place, we saw a similar technique used, when the people in the house were sitting on the sofa, and to the left was the door to the room where Dorothy's son was supposed to be.
The acting was terrific. I'm not just talking about Dennis Hopper and Isabellia Rossellini as Frank and Dorothy. I'm also talking about Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, everybody else. This movie would not be what it was without both the strange characters and the totally normal characters.
Characters
Jeffrey Beaumont
Jeffrey was our point-of-view character. I fully expected him to be a psychopath. The fact that he was so interested in the severed ear was what made me suspicious of him. He seemed to really want a crime to happen, and he almost went looking in search of one. He pounced when Sandy gave him the information.
That being said, Jeffrey didn't behave super weirdly. He still knew how to act like a normal person lol. When Dorothy came on to him, I still think that Jeffrey behaved as a normal person would, though again, he was a little too interested, instead of trying to find an out as soon as he could.
In terms of Jeffrey's relationship with Sandy, I thought that he was going to use her to get more information, like a psychopath. And I was surprised that he didn't. I think he did truly like her, though maybe not in the traditional romantic way. I think he thought it was cool that she was spending all this time with him and showing interest in his hobby (crime).
In the dream sequence, the first most unlikely thing that I noticed was that Jeffrey's dad had made a full recovery. Before that, we'd mostly Jeffrey's dad confined in the hospital bed, and the fact that he made a full recovery seemed very suspicious. But I think it shows us that maybe Jeffrey isn't a psychopath. Maybe he does care for his father lol. In the sequence, his dad and Detective Williams were on friendly terms, as was one of his aunts and Mrs. Williams. His other aunt was hanging out with Sandy.
I think that the appearance of the robin was directly from Sandy. I feel that Jeffrey as a person probably didn't spend a lot of time thinking about love in the romantic way that Sandy would. So he infused Sandy's imagery with his own idea of what a happy ending should look like.
Dorothy Vallens
On Wikipedia, Dorothy Vallens was called a femme fatale, which surprised me. When we think of femme fatales, we think of women who have a little more agency in their lives. But I don't think Wikipedia is wrong. Dorothy was able to convince Jeffrey to fight for her, and in the end, he did.
In the movie, Dorothy did seem to be a very disturbed character, which makes total sense. Her husband and child were being held hostage by this psychopath who was simultaneously abusive and also had a mommy kink. It would be strange if she wasn't affected by it.
When we were first learning about Dorothy, I thought it was kind of odd that Frank was so taken with her singing because in my opinion, I really thought she was just an average singer. I think it really added to how strange the atmosphere of the movie was.
I think Dorothy liked Jeffrey because he was the one thing in her life that was not controlled by Frank. He actually seemed to be interested in her and her well-being. Unfortunately, due to the sexual violence she underwent, I think she also had a warped version of what relationships are like. She called Jeffrey her secret lover, but I don't think she necessarily loved him, her feelings for him might have been platonic.
In the end, Jeffrey's dream sequence showed Dorothy reunited with her son Donnie, which of course is what Jeffrey would have imagined to be her best possible scenario. However, we can't be sure if that was what happened. When Dorothy went to see her son at Ben's place, she left the room kind of lifeless. I wondered why that was. Was it because...Donnie wasn't alive anymore? If that was the case, however, it would be strange that she wouldn't have completely broken down. Maybe she was just sad to leave him? It's very up in the air.
Frank Booth
Frank was the psychopathic villain who was so creepy and freaky. The first time we saw him was when he came to Dorothy's apartment for sex. He alternated very quickly between his abusive "daddy" persona, and the "baby" persona that he goes into when he has the inhaler on. When he was in the baby persona, I think Dorothy might have called him "Donnie," which was what led me to believe that Dorothy's son Donnie might not have been real.
Anyway, Frank seemed to be a drug lord who was working with Detective Gordon, who would kill his business rivals, and tamper with evidence to help Frank.
Jeffrey interacted with Frank for the first time when he was caught at Dorothy's apartment. Frank took Jeffrey along and he behaved as we expected. He was the undisputed boss of his posse, but he behaved extremely erratically. You could never guess what he was going to do next, and that was what was frightening.
As mentioned, Frank had kind of a mommy kink, which to my surprise, he was going to act out right in front of Jeffrey and his posse in the car, until Jeffrey told him to leave Dorothy alone. The other weird thing about Frank was how easily he was moved by music. Jeffrey saw him watching Dorothy sing, and he was moved to tears while holding a strip of blue velvet. And at Ben's house, Frank was also nearly moved to tears while Ben was lipsyncing. It was very strange. And I don't think there needs to be a reason for any of this. It just shows us that Frank was an incredibly weird man.
At the end of the movie, Jeffrey found Detective Gordon and a man who was presumably Don (Dorothy's husband), both basically dead in Dorothy's apartment. We have no idea how they died. But considering Frank ended up being the "well-dressed man," he was the only suspicious person alive, and I guess it was reasonable to believe that he was behind the murders. Anyway, Frank wanted to hunt down Jeffrey but Jeffrey killed him before he got the chance.
Freaky villain, Frank is. He suited the atmosphere of this movie perfectly.
Sandy Williams
Sandy was Detective Williams' daughter, the person who first told Jeffrey about Dorothy Vallens. And she was the one outsider to all of this mess.
After a certain point, Jeffrey stopped including Sandy in his investigations, but he still shared his findings with her. I think their relationship grew because of this. There was no one else who was willing to listen to Jeffrey's findings like this. And perhaps Sandy found Jeffrey more interesting than her jock boyfriend Mike who only saw her as a possession (judging by how he acted when he confronted Jeffrey for taking his girlfriend, but wouldn't even speak to said girlfriend politely).
I actually thought Sandy was well-portrayed and likeable as a normal teenager. She was a senior, so 17-18 years old, and she acted like it. She jumped to saying that she loved Jeffrey very easily, which feels like teenager behaviour lol. When Dorothy called Jeffrey her secret lover, she was very upset with him, but she still recognized that Dorothy was in a lot of danger. In the end, she forgave him very easily, saying that she still loved him. That, I think is a bit up in the air as to whether she really forgave him that quickly. But in any case, she tracked down her dad to try to help Jeffrey as he went to Dorothy's apartment.
So even though Sandy had a minimal role in the story, I found her likeable. She was reasonably interested, as most people are in morbid mysteries. But she was also appropriately freaked out when the situation called for it.
Themes
I think most of the themes I saw in this movie were more visual in nature, so I don't have the best points to make for this part. Please consult Professor Wikipedia lol.
Of couse, blue velvet was a recurring theme. The robe that Dorothy wore was blue velvet, probably because Frank liked it. And presumably she sang Blue Velvet because of Frank's preferences as well.
Frank used an inhaler, but I somehow recall someone else using an inhaler too. I'll have to look it up later.
The robins at the end of the movie, as I mentioned, were likely Jeffrey injecting Sandy's viewpoints into his own idea of what happiness is like.
As I was reading Wikipedia, I thought the interpretation of this movie being about an Oedipal relationship was fascinating, with Jeffrey as the child and Frank and Dorothy as the parents. What is also fascinating is Frank's mommy kink, where he likes to act as a baby sometimes, which would kind of support the idea of Frank and Jeffrey being rivals. But then in this movie, Dorothy also has her own son Donnie, who is kind of her true love. Frank tries to fill that void but he can't really, because he reverts to his abusive behaviour so easily. And in the end, even Jeffrey acknowledges that Donnie is Dorothy's favourite.
Overall
What an eerie and freaky movie. I'm still happy I watched it. It was very fascinating. I was most impressed with the camera work, and the story telling style was really compelling too. The intense atmosphere isn't for everybody; I definitely found it very strange, but at least it had me interested.