There is trouble until the robins come

“And all of a sudden, thousands of robins were set free, and they flew down and brought this blinding light of love. And it seemed like that love would be the only thing that would make any difference. And it did.”.

Every time I sit down and write a review for Blue Velvet after having just rewatched it, always do I think to myself, “this is it! This is the one! This is the definitive review, and never again will I write another review for what has been my FAVORITE film for over five years now.”. And yet, here I am again, having written what I consider to be my “definitive, definitive” review of Blue Velvet. And yet this so-called “definitive, definitive”, review will I, in two, three, five years’ time look at like some of my previous reviews for Blue Velvet and once more say to myself, “what I have articulated here is outdated, because more, much, much more do I have to say now as opposed to then?”. I certainly didn’t think that when I wrote my first “definitive” review from April 4th 2020, yet, here I am now, five years later, with more and so much more on my mind to be said and interpreted.

For years have I admittedly struggled to articulate not only to people I know but also in my reviews as to why Blue Velvet IS my favorite film of all time. It goes beyond just plain entertainment value, or the commanding performances (specifically from Dennis Hopper) that the film houses, or the score and music from Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise, or the atmosphere. I think what we come to definitively decide as our “Favorites” of anything certainly gives another person a glimmer and glimpse into who it is we are, especially if a total stranger we may be to them. They say that the wand in Harry Potter chooses the wizard, and I think that same idea you can apply to any work of art. We don’t pick our favourite films or books or bands or albums. They pick us. Or rather, they come to us at a time in our lives when we need them the most, and in the process what do they go and do? They go and leave a genuine and profound lifelong mark on the individual. And that is exactly what Blue Velvet did for me when I first saw it over five years ago when I was fifteen years old, and still continues to do so for me now. Never has Blue Velvet lost its spark for me, even after having seen it now a whopping thirteen times.

A deeper, spiritual and personal connection do I have with this film that goes above and beyond of what it is that is actually projected and playing on the screen. Some films or works of art you can look at in that lens, where the work transcends the actual plot and what you’re actually seeing play out is something quite allegorical that may apply to you and your own life and circumstances personally. In recent years have I come to view Blue Velvet in this lens, and I think it has revitalized and redefined it in a way that will forever solidify it as being my favorite film to the day I die, and if it wasn’t for this transcendence to keep it fresh with each repeat viewing, I probably admittedly would have grown tired of it at a point. I know this film inside and out and yet so much more is revealed to me each time – not in an interpretive sense, but an allegorical sense. An allegorical sense that reveals more of myself to myself. I feel like I have gone through a Blue Velvet experience of my own, not like the kind necessarily depicted in the film, but an experience that introduced me to a world and a state of mind I never knew existed, and never knew could have existed, especially right under my nose and in my own head, in which I got a taste of a kind of darkness like the one depicted in this film, and deep did that darkness and that hopelessness take me when all I’ve ever known in my life is the light on the surface, much like Jeffrey’s own experience in the film.

To me, Blue Velvet has become an allegory of a period of my life which I consider to be the darkest of my life, where enveloped I was by the darkness, and for the longest time did I not know how to navigate or swim against it, to the point where light at the end of the tunnel I could not see. A very dark few years of my life where I discovered for the first time the immense capability of what the mind is able to manifest as reality even when what it is manifesting is nothing more than fantasy. For the longest time did this cripple and drain me, physically, mentally, and spiritually. For an entire year and a half I went completely offline from Letterboxd and barely watched a single film during that time. The fact I could not partake anymore in what was my most cherished and beloved hobby without the darkness of what I was thinking and feeling overwhelming me for every moment of every day was a mini hell-on-earth for me in a way I could not have predicted. Devouring film became my lifeblood before this dark period, and that absence in my life in no longer being able to watch film anymore for the longest time was unbearable, to the point where I honestly did believe I would never be able to put on a film again without thinking and feeling what I was feeling and thinking. I feared the prospect of putting on Blue Velvet in particular because I did not want to spoil the experience of watching my favorite film with the physical and mental sensations of all that I was feeling at the time with the fear that it would spoil future rewatches forever, because one bad experience was grounds for me to jeopardize all the rest of my times viewing the film for life.

This hopelessness and this dread persisted for a long, long, time. Everyday. For over a year and a half. And to some extent does it still remain today, but more so the memory of it all rather than my fractured thoughts and feelings from the time, much like how Dorothy at the end of the film feels herself. The darkness eventually do we overcome, but the memory of that pain remains. I have since learned how to harness and use the difficulty of the suffering I endured in a creative way, in which all that I went through was not wasted or in vain. And now do I look back on this dark period of my life with glee, because from out of this pain was born a great, great, light that clearly defined and textualized the path I want to take with my life, this defined path that was virtually non-existent prior to the onset of this dark period. I apply this period of my life to what Jeffrey Beaumont goes through in the film because I see his navigation through the story and his world in an identical way I saw my own navigation through my own descent through the darkness – not as a partaker in the darkness, but as both a spectator and a casualty.

Jeffrey discovering the ear in the field–the ear that leads him to discover the darkness beneath the surface which he never knew existed—is to my eyes an allegory of the very crippling anxieties that I myself would soon be introduced to that would wear me down for the longest time. Frank Booth represents to me all of that fear and all of that anxiety that was wearing me down daily and dictating every decision I made from then on. Out of fear did I let it define me, and I let it make me say “no” to things when really I wanted to say “yes”. But I still put up with it. Even when it broke me, I put up with it. And that’s where the hope kicks in. The Robins. The belief that there is trouble until the robins come. And that is the only ounce of hope I held on to during that period. That the robins would one day come and I would be free for good of this mental prison of my own making. Those who rise up, stand up, and look at that life-or-death fear straight in the eye and say, “I’m not letting you define me anymore”, will win. Always will they win. The greatest weakness of all anxiety and all evil is one who stands up against it without an ounce of fear and a heart of good. Fear fears strength, for without strength, does fear no longer terraform within us. Its all about taking that necessary action to quash whatever it is that is bringing you down, and when that action is taken, the result you then get is your rising up from the darkness and finding your way back into the light, as brilliantly and resonantly illustrated in Blue Velvet’s conclusion, which to me is one of the most optimistic and hopeful conclusions to anything I have seen or read, especially too when you consider the explicit content of the film it is attached to. This is the personal allegory that Blue Velvet, in recent years, HAS come to represent to my sights, senses and heart. No other film is there in my life, and really, no other tv show, or novel, or song am I able to look at in this lens to THIS heavy extent where what I’m seeing play out on the screen is one thing to Lynch’s mind and something else entire to my own.

Blue Velvet sits on an entirely different astral plain of filmmaking for me. I go into this film each time as if I’m seeing it with fresh eyes for the first time again, and it never fails to generate genuine feelings akin to a first viewing. Sure, I have a second favorite film, and a third favorite film, and a fourth, and a fifth, but close, remotely close do their lengths and their impact not come to in regard to the indisputable impact Blue Velvet has left on my heart, my soul, and my being. This is it! This is the greatest film of my life, and convinced I am that it will be for the rest of my life. Each time does it reaffirm my profound belief in the notion of good triumphing over evil, and how sometimes, for the sake of our own positive, personal and spiritual growth, how important and beneficial it may be in our lives to take a hold of the ear that will lead us through the darkness as both a spectator and a casualty, and like the phoenix will our souls and our being be brought anew, raised up higher than ever before, when that light at the end of the tunnel we find.

I got to see Blue Velvet for the first time tonight in a movie theatre, which certainly made the experience all the more interesting in seeing and feeling the aura of a packed cinema’s worth of people’s reaction to it. The laughter, the gasps, and the strict, dead silence.

Thank you David, for what is still the greatest film experience of my life.