Blue Velvet

This is a mystery. What else could it be? Soon Jeffrey and Sandy are involved in solving it. It is a path that leads them to a nightclub where there is a singer, Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini), who lives alone, in a spartan apartment.

Of course, according to Director Lynch, Jeffrey is a red-blooded American boy, and he is soon in pursuit (as a sexual predator or just a predator?) of the feral Dorothy. He hides in her apartment, where he watches her. Dorothy, though interesting, has defenses of her own, and forces Jeffrey out of the closet--literally (I leave the sexual aspect to you to decide). Then she forces him to abuse her.

Now. Along the way, as this relationship develops, Jeffrey is exposed (again, pun intended) to one Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a pervert who actually gives new definition to the term. (How Hopper does this I leave to the courageous viewer to find out.)

Now. "Blue Velvet" is a groundbreaking work because it operates on several levels. Unfortunately, it does not actually work on these various levels. The reason for this is obvious: All the story lines (and there are several, I assure you) run parallel to one another, never crossing, never intersecting. Consequently the overall effect is not only disjointed and fragmented but deliberately compartmentalized.

Suggestion has been made by sycophants of Director Lynch with regards to this concern: Lynch, the director, the professional voyeur, is unsatisfied, so why should the movie-goer, the amateur voyeur, be any different?

A weak explanation, at best, this.

David Lynch had an opportunity with "Blue Velvet" to join romantic satire with S & M to create, to produce a new genre of narrative storytelling. One unprecedented. Instead he blinked and cobbled up something that is nothing less than soft-core porn pretending to being cinematic brilliance.

Of course, given what passes for acceptable fare these days by way of Hollywood a film like "Blue Velvet", though flawed, is High Art.

Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh. . . my.

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