 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Blue Velvet Revisited • Year: 2016 • Country: USA, Germany, Slovenia • Director: Peter Braatz • Main cast: Laura Dern, Brad Dourif, Jeff Goodwin • Runtime: 86 minutes • Production company: – • TRAILER (Not available) |
It’s indisputable that Blue Velvet (1986) is one of the best and most personal movies of cult director David Lynch, as well as one of the best executed mystery thrillers of the last half a century. That’s why the screening of Blue Velvet Revisited (2016) in such a special environment as the Sitges Film Festival was a mandatory date. But, sadly, the expectations didn’t match reality.
Blue Velvet Revisited (2016) is merely a collection of photographies and clips taken by German by then back in 1986 aspiring filmmaker Peter Braatz. It includes some short interviews with key individuals for the making of the film like its writer and director David Lynch, producer Fred Caruso and some other cast and crew members. But, to my disappointment, those interviews are not the main motor of this documentary film.
The plot or structure of Blue Velvet Revisited (2016) is kind of difficult to describe, as it’s more like a collection of low quality roughly shot material put together not very effectively so all the power in this movie resides in the interest created by the original Blue Velvet (1986) film. No new point of views are thrown, no recent interviews to give a better perspective of what that shooting involved are included. It all feels to be a collection of old footage mixed together not so efficiently.
If we leave the absolute weakness of the concept of this documentary film aside, the strength in Blue Velvet Revisited (2016) resides in what was done over 30 years ago. The energy and enthusiasm David Lynch inspires on set is eternal, able to overcome any adversity and deal with all the obstacles. He is present in almost all the creative positions of the movie making. He talks to the actors to get into character, he works on the set design doing several jobs with his own hands, he is actively present in the makeup and hair department doing… It is his movie, his vision, and he wants to control every single aspect of what will be imprinted on the screen. But not in a tyranic way, of course. Lynch always has good words for his cast and crew, and clearly relies on their work and professionality. He is happy that after the chaos lived in his previous directional works, especially under the strict control of Dino De Laurentiis in Dune (1984), this time this is a low budget project where he can have control of all the creative factors. You see David Lynch happy and that is always inspirational.
Blue Velvet Revisited (2016) also includes clips of main cast and crew members like Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Brad Dourif, Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell and Jack Nance, but sadly no interview of them is featured. Understandably because the filmmaker didn’t have the material in the first time, which makes one wonder the necessity of this documentary to be. It is always a pleasure to see David Lynch in action, and I’m sure everyone reading this review is a fan of Blue Velvet (1986) and is interested in any material coming out of it, as I was. But honestly, this time the resulting film is pretty void. And the music, editing and conceiving idea, so far away from the original thing, doesn’t make the watching experience very memorable at all. This comes from a David Lynch fan, besides the fact of craving from footage of one of my favorite filmmakers working in the site, Blue Velvet Revisited (2016) is not a fundamental watch at all.
RATE: 4/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5725908
