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Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with MeRating:
Release Date: 26 February, 2002 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $14.99 You SAVE: $4.99! Cast: Complete Cast (19 total) |
Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me Reviews
The last week in the life of Laura Palmer in David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" prequel
When the television series "Twin Peaks" ended with BOB having jumped inside FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, fans of the series were loud in their lamentations over the demise of their favorite television series. So director David Lynch, who had created the series with writer Mark Frost, was game to do something to keep the ball rolling. However, a fair number of the cast had moved on, which meant going forward was problematic, so Lynch and co-writer Robert Engels (who would go on to write one of the weirdest TV reality shows, "Murder in Small Town X"), decided to go with a prequel that would cover the events leading up to the point when Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) ended up dead, wrapped in plastic.
In terms of what we learned from the show, "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" went back to the first of BOB's victims, the murder of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley), a waitress. Her death was investigated by FBI Agents Chet Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Stanley (Keither Sutherland). Basically they encounter a stone wall of indifference and hostility, until one of the agents disappears. You would think this would bring Gordon Cole and a horde of agents down on Twin Peaks, but instead we jump ahead to a year later and what happened in the final week of Laura Palmer's life. This is a prequel that assumes you know the answer to the burning question "Who killed Laura Palmer?", so anybody who has never watched the television series and thinks they should start here is making a very big mistake, because it will ruin that part of the show for you.
Free from the fetters of network television, Lynch is able to indulge in his peculiar sense of style and substance. We are not quite in "Eraserhead" territory here, but we are traveling in the region when it comes to disturbing imagery. This might be purer David Lynch, but it is getting away from the essential style of the television series in significant ways. In terms of the subject matter, the stories about Laura descending into drug use and prostitution are not just portrayed on screen, they are literally wallowed in scene after scene. The television series had this murky gap between the photo of Laura as homecoming queen that appeared in the end credits of most first season episodes and our first sight of her as a corpse (wrapped in plastic). Filling in the gap were the details of a horror story, and here we get to see the horrors. But mostly we get to see Laura Palmer topless as she and Ronette Pulaski (Pheobe Augustine) travel the road to their destiny. The only problem is that seeing Laura descend into hell in this 1992 movie is not as effective as hearing the bits and pieces of her debauched life in the television show. By the time she and Ronette end up in the railroad card, you are getting dangerously close to being convinced that she deserves to die, which I do not think is (or should be) the intent here.
In terms of members of the television cast who show up for the movie we have Ray Wise as Leland Palmer, Madchen Amick as Shelly Johnson, Dana Ashbrook as Bobby Briggs, Eric DaRe as Leo Johnson, Miguel Ferrer as Albert Rosenfield, Heather Graham as Annie Blackburn, Peggy Lipton as Norma Jennings, James Marshall as James Hurley, Lenny von Dohlen as Harold Smith, Grace Zabriskie as Sarah Palmer, Catherine E. Coulson as the Log Lady, Michael J. Anderson as the Man from Another Place, Frank Silva as Bob, Walter Olkewicz as Jacques Renault, and Al Strobel as Philip Gerard (The One Armed Man). The only significant character who is recast for the film is Donna Hayward, now played by Moira Kelly. This list of characters shows you the focus is really on Laura big time, and why they can get buy without Sheriff Truman and Audrey Horne, but not Donna. All things considered, "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" is better than nothing, but certainly not what we would have hoped for. At least at the end with Agent Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) shows up, we realize that the best of "Twin Peaks" is still ahead of us at this point, at least in narrative order.
Murder Case Turned Eerily Kafkaesque
If the words above could be used to describe another Lynch movie - the much applauded "Lost Highway" (1997) whose plot is inspired in part by Kafka's "Die Verwandlung" and the well-known O.J. Simpson-case - they are as much descriptive of his earlier and less critically acclaimed film "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (1992).
After two fascinating intermezzos (namely "Industrial Symphony No. 1" [1990] and "Wild at Heart" [1991]) David Lynch returns to the ever more surreal and absurd mystery of "Twin Peaks" (1990-1991) together with writer Robert Engels. While the Tv-series opened to rave reviews and much acclaim, audience interest dwindled and critics grew tired during the much debated second season. Leaving no finite answers as to mystery of Laura Palmer's murder-case, the series went as far as to finish with a question, in fact a strangely diabolical one: "How's Annie...?"
There are perhaps no definite answers either in the prequel "Fire Walk With Me", however the subjective story of Laura's Persephony-like descent into Hades remains as tantalizing and surreal as ever. To be true, the story of Laura's dire straits resembles much that Fred Madison in aforementioned "Lost Highway". And there will never be an ending quite as persuasive, though explicitely violent and misogonitic, as when Laura in the red room is underscored by the classical masterpiece "Requiem in C Minor".
Two scenes in particular deserve mentioning as two of Lynch's most explicitely and vividly subjective (some would argue 'surreal' or perhaps 'impressionistic') sequences ever:
(1) an almost (and obviously intentionally so) unintelligible scene in a filthy bar near the American-Canadian border where Jacques Renault apparently (though never audible to 'us') gives hints as to the murder of Teresa Banks.
and,
(2)an excessively loud, noisy scene where Laura and Leland, both seated in Leland's car, are held back in traffic by a timber truck and an old handicapped couple. The eerie tone slowly turns deafening before erupting in a violent (almost abusive) musique concrète - mirroring the abuse of Laura and the (beautiful?) absurdity of life in an almost Epsteinian fashion.
The film has so often "fallen victim" to misreadings and critical devaluation, but in its uncanny and eerily surreal stimmung it should, instead, be recognised as the very essence of Lynchian. Demanding as it may seem, "Fire Walk With Me" is meant to be experienced and felt, as much as it is meant to be intellectually understood.
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