TWIN PEAKS:
FIRE WALK WITH ME
"When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out.
The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises,
and then all goodness is in jeopardy."
-- The Log Lady
David Lynch's wildly misunderstood film prequel to the hit television series TWIN PEAKS has slowly garnered a belated appreciation since it's disasterous, boo-laden debut at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Initially viewed as an overly cryptic, misogynistic mess, time has been kind to this surreal and operatic lament to innocence corrupted.
Following the last seven days in the life of doomed high school prom queen, Laura Palmer, Lynch takes the symbols and iconography of his beloved mass media hit and reframes them in such a way as to give cinema what may be it’s greatest ever evocation of the inner psychology of a victim of rape and incest.
As Lynch draws ever closer to the night of Laura’s brutal murder, the viewer is allowed to become an intimate witness to the details of her father’s “possession” by the sadistic spirit “Bob,” a very clever and effective metaphor that ruminates on the way both an abuser and a victim can employ the concept of a “split identity” in order to cope with an increasingly unbearable reality. Lynch also compliments this extreme drama with some of his most beautiful and disturbing visual compositions, a gut-wrenching lead performance by Sheryl Lee, and a supremely haunting score by long-time collaborator Angelo Badalamenti.
Fire Walk With Me is without a doubt one of the most overlooked films of the 90’s, and like any great film, it has grown well with age and repeated viewings. It’s all heavy stuff, assuredly, but well worth the time for any serious cinephile.
-- originally appeared in the May 2005 issue of NATHAN, JR.
3 comments:
ah, that movie is so fantastic! one of my favorites!
Hi Garrison
I'm a regular visitor to the Dennis Cooper website, but have yet to post there. Fire Walk With Me is definitely a major work--even without seeing the series, I think it works as a whole. Have you read Lynch on Lynch? I'm not sure if I read this there, but somewhere he talks about what might have gone on if the series had not been cancelled...like having that moment where the dead Annie B in Laura's bed tells her the bad dale is in the lodge, etc, write it in your diary. this of course is before the murder. Lynch ascribes it to someone writing something about Lee Harvey Oswald in 1912, making the logic of fate and time even more mysterious.
Also, I got the great chance to shake Lynch's hand the other night in Boston. he was on his meditation tour.
See, I'm a huge fan of the TV show, but for me the movie, on some level, just doesn't work. still, I agree w/you that there's a lot of beauty and sadness, and is obviously very daring w/the incest theme. That scene of the Palmer's at dinner is haunting.
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