David Lynch's Blue Velvet

David Lynch is without doubt the greatest film maker working in cinema today, closely followed by David Cronenberg and Lars von Trier. Okay, in case you start accusing me of western bias or worse, ignorance--Martin Scorsese (by the way, should we call him contemporary?), Abbas Kiarostami, Wong Kar-Wai and others in China, Japan and Korea are good too. But having said that, hardly anyone's work comes even close to what Lynch has achieved in his rather short career, specially given that he is working in the mainstream Hollywood system. There is hardly any contemporary filmmaker who can claim to have an adjective derived from his name. The word "Lynchian", in its signification of the convergence of bizarre depravity with the surface normalcy of the mundane, conveys meanings which can only be experienced and felt.

I was confirmed in my beliefs after watching Blue Velvet the other night after a gap of almost two years. I was quite surprised to find out how the film has lost none of its powers to shock and unnerve me. And this was when, this time, I was consciously and objectively trying to understand the technique of the film and knew very well that the film was symbolic, not to be taken literally (it might just be a defence mechanism). I knew that the film was an allegory about the pains of growing up, a rather Miltonic screed on the pitfalls of gaining knowledge and the shock that comes with the loss of childhood innocence when initiated into the dark and twisted world of adult sexuality. But even with knowing all this, the film does manage to affect at a visceral level, and that's what makes Lynch's style so unique and so one-of-a-kind.

The first reaction to the film generally is--ohh, I know Lynch is just a smart guy, but things are not as dark or depraved as he thinks they are--but then Lynch is hardly making a general statement about human nature or indulging in social criticism, although it is equally valid to read the film in both ways--as psycho-analysis of sexual pathologies and social satire on the phony normalcy of suburban American life. What this film actually does is that it forces even the most passive and lazy viewer to take the same journey of self-discovery, that the hero takes, into the deeper recesses of self and confronting the darkness that lies inside, buried under the fragile sanity of everyday routine life. Of course not everybody likes this idea but for those willing to stare down the darkness, Lynch's films are, "like our own nightmares, oddly informative". Whether onscreen or in the world outside, we can't defeat our demons without knowing who they are and that's what makes David Lynch not only the best but also the most important filmmakers working today.