A couple nights ago, I watched Blue Velvet all the way through for the first time in years.
I’m 32. I was 17 when I saw this film for the first time. I don’t remember how old I was when I saw it the last time, but my perception of it has changed because I have changed. When I first saw it, I thought Dorothy, Frank and all his hangers-on were utterly bizarre, besides being scary. When I was older, I began to notice the sharp contrast between those characters and Jeffrey and Sandy’s naivete. In my third decade, I’ve come to take it for granted that some people have extreme sexual quirks, that there are “party houses” (I’ve been in my share of them, though I’ve never seen anyone sing into a worklight), that there’s corruption in every community, and that people sometimes get brutalized (never experienced that first hand, but I realize I’m lucky). Still not pleasant things to watch, but I’m no longer floored.
I now find it easier to belive that there are “people like Frank in the world” than that there are people like Jeffrey and Sandy!
I wonder how I’ll see it when I’m 40.