Movie Review: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

David Lynch Directs his Heart out in Nightmarish Twin Peaks Prequel.

Aug 18, 2009 Rob Humanick

Weird and surrealist only begin to describe David Lynch's dark, masterpiece movie prequel to the classic television series Twin Peaks. 4 stars out of 4.

Few filmmakers approach David Lynch in terms of visual complexity and emotional dexterity. His works exist in the realm of pure cinema in that they are less point by point storytelling than exquisitely charted mood enhancers; audiences aren't told a story so much as they invited into its midst, to experience it from the inside out. Amongst the director's greatest accomplishments lies the relatively forgotten Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, cinematic prequel (and epilogue of sorts) to the once-popular, ultimately canceled series of the same name.

Overlooked Surrealist Classic

Booed at its 1992 Cannes premiere, it's doubtful in hindsight that Fire Walk With Me could have achieved popularity under even the most forgiving of moviegoing climates (the same can be said for dozens of now-classic movies). Far and away from the lauded suburban nightmares of Blue Velvet or the trippy, Wizard of Oz-euphoria of Wild at Heart, Fire Walk With Me eschews easy readings and offers perhaps the most emotionally damaging material Lynch has worked with to date (to say the ending is heartbreaking is an understatement).

Its schizophrenic take on reality is surely off-putting to those who prefer linearity, and while there remains – as in all of his films – a certain degree of dark humor, Fire Walk With Me’s epic downer surely contributed to the loathsome critical responses it drew seventeen years ago. Venomous reception notwithstanding, the film is held highly in some circles today, and interestingly enough, was a box office success in Japan upon its initial release.

Twin Peaks: From TV to the Big Screen

Twin Peaks the show (also the name of the fictitious Washington town in which it takes place) commenced with the death of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), the high school prom queen whose body washed ashore in a haphazardly wrapped plastic sheet (just the first of many iconic images offered by the series). Knowing that this particular horror is coming does little to diminish the wringing emotional effects of that which leads up to it. Like a serpent devouring its own tail, the film passes through reality, dreams, and ominous other places, turning the world inside out like a ghoulish autopsy. Fire Walk With Me would be tragic even as a straightforward drama; by presenting it from multiple vantage points, it becomes revelatory.

The infamous "convenience store" sequence (initiated by David Bowie's role as a missing investigator, now returned from another dimension) might be the most frightening thing Lynch has ever put to film. Only a few minutes long, it ran a full twenty in the original rough cut (it’s of no surprise that fans have been pushing for the release of the film’s excised footage for over a decade). Surreal set pieces make full use of Lynch's audio/visual arsenal, and while production issues and creative tensions plagued the filmmaking process, these seem to have been to its ultimate benefit; the film goes darker and deeper than most episodes.

Murder, Mystery, and Then Some

Suffice to say, a healthy knowledge of the Twin Peaks mythology is critical to those looking to fully experience this soul-rattling expose. Fire Walk With Me nary stops to catch its own breath, let alone bring the uninitiated up to speed. The film begins with a tragic murder all its own; after the investigation (which ultimately dead-ends), we see the final days Laura Palmer's high-wire life: a tedious balance of everyday high school drama compounded by the trauma inflicted upon her by Bob, a sexually ravaging boogeyman (which is to say, he may or may not be real) of unspeakably nightmarish proportions.

Such circumstances only scratch the surface of Twin Peaks. The ethereal presence of the Black Lodge (and its heavenly equivalent, the White Lodge; both said to be from the folklore of local Native American tribes) and its disturbing occupants hangs over the town, providing the axis on which Lynch examines the tenuous nature of reality to both literal and metaphoric ends the two usually overlapping in some unstated manner.

Every image, sound, and color – as nonsensical as they might appear at first glance – ultimately clicks into place, like a puzzle one is only subconsciously aware of. Using sound design, lighting techniques and provocative framing to their most extreme ends (it’s hard to imagine a more resourcefully directed film), Fire Walk With Me digs up infinite terrors in even the most commonplace scenarios. It is, among other things, a reminder that some of the very worst things are always with us, just beneath our fingernails.

Director: David Lynch.
Screenplay: Robert Engels and David Lynch.
Cast: Sheryl Lee, Moira Kelly, David Bowie, Chris Isaak, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Wise andKyle MacLachlan.
134 minutes, Rated R, 1992

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Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me theatrical poster	The Man from Another Place and Kyle MacLachlan	Carlton Lee Russell as the Jumping Man
Carlton Lee Russell as the Jumping Man (detail)