Blue Velvet (1986)

David Lynch's map of the terrain between wet dream and nightmare, Blue Velvet reaffirmed the director's status as one of the most vital talents in American filmmaking, and achieved a mood and tone which would indelibly influence popular culture for the remainder of the 20th century. Though much of the film revolves around a compelling, lurid mystery -- executed in a tense, economical manner that might have made Alfred Hitchcock proud -- Blue Velvet is more interested in the mysteries of desire and the horrors of unchecked deviance. Lynch uses the form, style, and mood of a film noir to challenge and ultimately subvert notions of innocence, sexuality, and love. Even the casting reflects the director's agenda: Lynch's fresh young heroes, as played by Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern, are like leads in a 1950s hygiene film; he pits them against two icons of a lost Hollywood, Isabella Rossellini and Dennis Hopper, the latter turning in a jolting, career-resuscitating performance. Though it specifies no particular time, Blue Velvet's "golly gee" milieu of Lumberton, replete with soda fountains, convertibles, and hardware stores, is a Reagan-era idyll, an exaggeration of the 1980s concept of the American Dream. But from the moment Lynch's camera delves underground (in a surreal, Buñuel-like moment) to take in a thriving community of ants, it's clear that the director is more interested in the Reagan of Kings Row (1941), and in the grotesque despair that lurks beneath the surface of placid middle-American life. The film was a breakthrough for Lynch in the way it melded the dream worlds of Eraserhead (1977) and Dune (1984) with the more literal, narrative approach of The Elephant Man (1980): its densely saturated, red-white-and-blue color scheme was stunningly photographed by Fredrick Elmes; the haunting, expressionistic soundscape was designed by frequent Lynch collaborator Alan Splet. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide