Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

★★★★
One of the television show's enduring images is that of Laura Palmer's reveal. We see it first within minutes of the premiere episode of Twin Peaks, and we see it again towards the end of David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. It is heartbreaking. Those eyelids and her melancholy posture suggest the saddest of stories. Even as motionless Laura Palmer, Sheryl Lee was still acting. She conveyed emotion with a slight tilt of her head and that sorrowful frown. Hers was a life that ended horrifically when it should have been glorious. Blue Velvet opened with an immediate warning signal—that of burrowing ants—to suggest the horrors to come in a town of picturesque neighborhoods complete with white picket fences. Now imagine Blue Velvet was itself only the surface, and there exists a small town with even darker forces at work. Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth was an evil character, but the antagonist in Fire Walk with Me is a force of nature that feeds off suffering.

The series is a mix of detective fiction, absurdist melodrama, ghostly visions and gallows humor. It didn't always hit the mark, but when it worked, it was sensational. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me serves as a prequel and chronicles the final seven days of Laura Palmer, whose death and the investigation of which spans the first season and parts of the second. The movie maintains the quirky humor and offbeat characters, but it shifts violently into the unhappy saga of a young woman who met abuse at 12 years old and endured it for years. Before we get to Laura, we get a prologue involving the murder of another young lady whose name was mentioned in the series. Teresa Banks met the same fate one year before the events in Twin Peaks. The F.B.I. sends agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) to investigate, but he too succumbs to the sinister elements at play. Series hero Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) makes a brief appearance early in the proceedings, but he isn't the focus here. This is the story of the oft-mentioned but little-seen Laura Palmer.

Palmer, as played by Lee, is the most popular girl in school. She's the homecoming queen. She serves her community through Meals on Wheels. As mentioned in the series but not in the movie, she tutored English to an expat from Hong Kong. She had everything going for her, yet she engaged in self-destructive behaviors. She was on drugs. She worked at a brothel just across the border in Canada, though the movie takes place after her stint there. She tells friend Donna Hayward (Moira Kelly) of her tormentor Bob (Frank Silva), who may not exist or maybe he does. Familiar faces make appearances from the series in what can be deemed cameo appearances, but Donna, Laura and her father Leland (Ray Wise) are the featured players, with Wise giving the film's most startling performance as the abusive father who may be under some sort of malevolent influence. Twin Peaks has its dark secrets, with supernatural beings out on the perimeter unleashing one of their own to inflict trauma because it suits them, though there appears to be allies coming from that realm as well.

The movie threatens to play like an elongated episode of Twin Peaks (much like Star Trek: Generations did a few years later), with its soap opera tropes and strange humor. The first speaker is David Lynch himself playing his Gordon Cole character, an F.B.I. agent who talks at a high volume due to a hearing problem. Angelo Badalamenti's soundtrack intrudes when it should not. It has the same playful tone of the show, yet our familiarity with the show and its structure is only a tactic to let us drop our guard. Lynch is getting us ready for a harrowing third act that shatters all expectations. Laura's sanity gradually falls apart as Bob manifests himself more frequently. As Bob becomes closer to achieving his objective, he reveals the extent of his influence in a sequence that is horrifying in its execution. The series never ventured this deep into the abyss. Her troubled life isn't that of a rebellious teenager, but the product of years of physical and physiological torment at the hands of a cruel otherworldly being.

In following her descent, we see apparitions coming and going. The movie is heavy on surrealism. This is Lynch's most unconventional movie since his debut Eraserhead, and from here on out his output reached an apex. I'm a fan of Dune and Blue Velvet, but with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me he really found his groove. This movie isn't just about the imperfections behind the tranquil veneer of a town surrounded by pine trees and fog. It is about salvation. This came out the same year as Abel Ferrera's Bad Lieutenant. Both films were about damaged characters who arrived at the lowest point in their lives. They engaged in detrimental behavior, yet they were not beyond redemption. Jesus wanted to deliver the lieutenant from his pain, and here, Laura became the victim of forces she couldn't begin to comprehend. Despite her sins, she could be saved, and indeed, her elation in the movie's closing moments is her expression of relief. She cries tears of joy. It's going to be all right now.

I wonder if Lukas Moodysson watched this and was inspired to craft his conclusion to Lilya 4-ever in the same vein. The last 10 minutes are among the most powerful of any conclusion I've ever seen. I watched through the closing credits, because the experience lingered. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is maddening. The imagery can be incomprehensible. Important dialogue is drowned out during key scenes that would otherwise provide exposition. I believe Lynch is less interested in telling his story with expository lines. He wants the images to carry us through. The dual nature of Leland Palmer is better revealed through Mary Sweeney's editing than through an explanation of Bob's actions, though knowledge of the series helps. When I saw this for the first time, I had a rough idea of what happened. A second viewing, which is pretty much mandatory for a David Lynch film, will help with fitting it all together. The movie was much maligned upon release. The series that inspired it was canceled after the second season when ratings dropped, making the existing audience too small to carry this. The audience has grown since.

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