Blue Velvet's characters constantly remark on just how strange
the world is but in case someone in the audience mishears them there's
always the regular human ear made alien by close-up, the lip syncing
mobster or the non-stop perspective distortion to set them straight.
It's all the more ironic then that Blue Velvet's world is not very strange at all.
I suppose it's darker than the idealised catalogs of suburbia, with capital E Evil lurking inside even the most straight-laced college boy, but it's less surprising or unusual than many a 40s noir. Everything is exactly as it's described less than 40 minutes into the movie - the rest is just wheel spinning. Perhaps more damningly the cynicism with which it views pristine colourful surfaces is so diffuse and toothless that it doesn't even break the skin. Ultimately Blue Velvet feels less like an earnest weirdo and more like an awkward teenage boy cultivating a series of studied poses.
I suppose it's darker than the idealised catalogs of suburbia, with capital E Evil lurking inside even the most straight-laced college boy, but it's less surprising or unusual than many a 40s noir. Everything is exactly as it's described less than 40 minutes into the movie - the rest is just wheel spinning. Perhaps more damningly the cynicism with which it views pristine colourful surfaces is so diffuse and toothless that it doesn't even break the skin. Ultimately Blue Velvet feels less like an earnest weirdo and more like an awkward teenage boy cultivating a series of studied poses.
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