TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME

By: Tony Whitt
Review Date: Saturday, May 11, 2002

The most disturbing thing about watching TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME on DVD isn't the level of violence the film achieves that the series never could. It isn't the jarring scenes within the Black Lodge, Lynch's vision of Hell - or perhaps it's heaven. It isn't even the fact that we know the ending long before it ever unrolls before our eyes. The most disturbing thing about watching this movie is realizing how little of it actually makes sense without rewatching the series that spawned it... and how little of it makes sense on its own.

This is often the way with films based directly on TV series, of course, especially in cases in which the film so quickly followed on from the series. How many of us could stick X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE in the player without a sense of what had happened to Mulder and Scully in the season leading up to it? Good thing they've gone and released the TWIN PEAKS series on DVD, then. Oh, that's right, the pilot episode isn't there because it's still stuck in rights battles, isn't it? If you're a fan, of course, the movie still plays out all right. But if prequels are meant to elucidate the events that lead up to a series, this prequel doesn't do the job: it leaves almost as many new questions open as the series did when it ended. If you're not a fan of the original series and you're looking for a good introduction to it, be warned: this ain't it.

The movie follows Laura Palmer, a schoolgirl in the idyllic town of Twin Peaks who has more on her mind than boys and the prom. She's also caught up in drugs and prostitution, and unbeknownst to her she's also been raped by her father since she was young. Instead of her father, she sees a mysterious figure called Bob. As her father loses more and more control of himself, Laura loses more control over her life - until she finally loses it altogether. Her life, that is.

And no, I haven't given away anything. The entire point of the original series was to answer the question "Who killed Laura Palmer?" - a question that had almost as much coinage in 1990 as the question "Who shot J.R.?" did ten years earlier. Anyone who knows anything about the series knows that Laura will die at the end of this movie. The questions are: how? why? and what's the significance of that corn being eaten backwards? Unfortunately, most of the answers to these questions are as confusing as the questions themselves, and the non-sequitur scenes with Chris Isaak as an ill-fated FBI agent, a tragically wasted Keifer Sutherland, and an almost superfluous David Bowie don't help matters. The scenes in the Black Lodge are as bizarre as usual, but unlike in the series, their presence here doesn't add much to the plotline. What keeps this movie going is the sheer momentum of the performances, ranging from borderline psychotic (in the cases of Sheryl Lee as Laura and Ray Wise as her all-too-loving-but-totally-demented father Leland Palmer) to nicely subdued (as with Moira Kelly who takes over Lara Flynn Boyle's part as Donna and Kyle MacLachlan's low-key version of psychic Special Agent Dale Cooper). And anyone who doesn't find Frank Silva's performance as Bob absolutely terrifying won't appreciate the few subtleties this film does have.


Visually, the film is far more lush than its small screen counterpart, though Lynch doesn't make quite the same use of the locale as he previously did. The lushness comes from the quality of the transfer from film to disc, as well as Lynch's strong blends of dark colors, moody shades, and some surprisingly restrained moments of pure horror. Sure, there's a close-up of someone's exploded skull, but the final murder scene is handled as if it were operatic violence rather than a bloodbath. The scene in the Canadian Bang Bang Bar, filmed in almost nothing but red light, is particularly evocative - even if the sound engineers on this disc decided to clean up the sound to let us perfectly hear the originally obscured dialogue.

If there's any disappointment with the actual movie, the disc somewhat makes up for it, despite the ridiculously flimsy packaging. On the minus side, Lynch has refused to do a director's commentary, to give permission to add all the deleted scenes he filmed, or to allow an isolated track of Angelo Badalamenti's haunting score. On the plus side, this disc includes one of the most entertaining documentaries ever made about a television series, "Reflections on the Phenomenon of Twin Peaks," which features a disjointed collection of interviews with the cast and some of the production team - but not Lynch himself, of course. The jarring transitions, however, are worthy of the man himself, and while you may feel a bit disoriented the fourth or fifth time someone gets cut off in mid-sentence as we move to another interview, it's not half as disorienting as the film will make you feel.

If you know French, the French audio track is worth a listen - whoever chose the voice actors for that version obviously knew the series well, as their voices fit the characters perfectly. The subtitles for both audio tracks are accessible through the player for once, even though the French titles don't fit the French audio track dialogue, resulting in some unusual variations. Finally, the animated menus featuring the Dugpas of the Black Lodge are simple but entertaining, but beware the DVD credits feature - unless you really want to watch a continuous loop of corn being eaten backwards over and over again.

If you're a fan of the series, it's not exactly a "must-have" kind of disc, but it'll tide you over until someone at New Line convinces Lynch to do a commentary. And if you're not a fan, perhaps renting some of Lynch's standalone movies first might be a wise move. Or not.