TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME

(August 1992, U.S.)

Did you watch TWIN PEAKS on ABC back in the early ‘90s?  If you didn’t, and you know nothing about the show, my post for this particular film may go way over your head.  Just the same, give it a shot.  If nothing else, you may be inspired to start streaming the show from the beginning now.

When David Lynch’s groundbreaking TV show premiered on April 8, 1990 on ABC, I didn’t tune in to see the two hour pilot that immediately grabbed the world’s attention.  It was actually a week later when a friend turned me on to the show already several episodes into its story.  Yes, I’d missed the pilot, but I was immediately hooked on this new television phenomenon trying to solve the mystery of “who killed Laura Palmer?”  Those who also followed the show more than thirty years ago know that while it started off with a colossal bang, it died a very quick death after Laura Palmer’s murderer (spoiler alert – it was her father) was revealed and was cancelled after it wrapped things up at the end of just two seasons.  Still, David Lynch couldn’t get his head and his heart away from the world of TWIN PEAKS and wanted to make a film to further explore the material of Laura Palmer and the contradictions of her character – lovely and radiant on the outside, but dying on the inside.  Actress Sheryl Lee, who played Laura, never actually got to live her character’s torment of being the victim of incest, as she was already dead when the series began (only Laura in flashback was ever seen).  There was also the torment of her father Leland Palmer and the dark side of Bob that raged within his soul. 

The final result was the R-rated prequel film TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME more than a year after the TV series was cancelled.  It was released without marketing or fanfare on Labor Day weekend of 1992, which also turned out to be one of the best weekends I ever had with friends at my family's beach house in Westhampton Beach, Long Island.  I went to see it on screen with some college friends.  What we all undeniably had in common was our love of TWIN PEAKS.  During that weekend, the sun didn’t shine even once, but it also didn’t rain.  So while we nonchalantly went about our days without planning too much in advance, one thing that was certain was a drive to Southampton on Sunday night to attend the late night showing of FIRE WALK WITH ME.  The theater that night was practically empty.  Except for my group of friends, there were maybe two or three other people, and they were seated in the back.  So for all practical purposes, my friends and I had the theater to ourselves.  This was our theater, our night, and our love of TWIN PEAKS bringing us together now.  We’d followed the show from beginning to end, knew everything there was to know, and as far as we were concerned, David Lynch had made this prequel for us.  This private arrogance wasn’t without merit, because it's immediately obvious when the film begins and the floating corpse of Teresa Banks is identified on screen, the understanding of this film, its characters and its circumstances are highly predicated on having watched the TV series.

Beginning one year before the murder of Laura Palmer, FBI agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley are assigned to investigate the murder of teenage drifter and prostitute Teresa Banks in the town of Deer Meadow, Washington.  The weirdness of David Lynch wastes no time with a woman named Lil, whose physical appearance and actions reveal information about their assignment, including an artificial blue rose pinned to her dress.  While examining Teresa’s corpse in the morgue, they discover a small piece of paper inserted under her fingernail with the letter “T” printed on it (you may recall that Laura had the same kind of paper with the letter “R” printed on it).  Later, while retrieving Teresa’s missing ring, the camera freezes, as if to suggest Desmond has been taken by an unseen force.

At the FBI headquarters in Philadelphia, Special Agent Dale Cooper (with Kyle MacLachlan returning in the role) and his boss Gordon Cole (David Lynch himself) experience a vision of their long-lost colleague Phillip Jeffries, (played by by David Bowie).  He tells them of a meeting he witnessed of mysterious spirits above a convenience store, including the Man from Another Place and the killer Bob (whom we already know to be the evil spirit that inhabited the body of Leland Palmer when he was killing).  One year later, we're once again in the town of Twin Peaks.  Laura is alive, she's addicted to cocaine, and is seeing James Hurley behind her biker boyfriend Bobby Briggs’s back.  In her bedroom, she discovers pages torn out of her secret diary, and then witnesses her own father exiting the house, thus deducing that he and Bob are one in the same.  Leland is abusive with her that night at dinner, and then lovingly tender with her later.  Her dream of being in the Black Lodge with Cooper and the Man from Another Place is creepy and visually haunting, as only David Lynch can do it.  Cooper wants Laura not to take Teresa’s ring, but it ends up in her hand, nonetheless.  When she awakes, the ring is gone.

The scene that follows in the Roadhouse is an example of everything Lynch couldn’t get away with on TV, including drug use, nudity and acts of sex.  We also learn that Laura and Ronette Pulaski knew Teresa Banks.  In a private moment with Laura and father in the car, they're verbally assaulted by Philip Gerard (also known as the one-armed man) who is possessed by the demon known as Mike, when he tries to warn Laura about her father and Bob.  Teresa’s ring is on his finger, and the film flashbacks to a potential foursome with her and Leland.  This doesn't happen when he's shocked to discover that one of the girls is his own daughter and flees the scene.  We're reminded again that we're watching an R-rated movie instead of a censored TV show, because there's a moment when the incestuous nature of Laura’s torment is not only visual, but physical, when Bob comes through her window and rapes her, only to reveal himself as Leland for a brief moment, sending Laura into terror.

Finally, on the night we all know is coming, Laura meets Leo Johnson, Jacques Renault and Ronette at the cabin in the woods.  Leland follows her there, and makes his evil existence known to us all when he attacks the men, and takes the girls to an abandoned train car.  Transforming into Bob, he beats Ronette unconscious and viciously murders Laura.  Now wrapped in plastic, she's placed in the lake until she washes up ashore the next morning, which is where the TV show pilot began more than two years earlier.  In the Black Lodge, Agent Cooper is there to comfort her spirit.  When she sees the angel of goodness, she laughs and cries, and we all believe that Laura Palmer shall find peace in a happier place.

This prequel was likely doomed before it ever hit the screen because if you didn’t follow the TV show, the film’s content would mean nothing to you, and probably just piss you off.  This was a time before streaming, and not even the complete videotape series of the show was available yet.  So it’s no wonder FIRE WALK WITH ME bombed at both the box office and with critics.  Those who “didn’t get it” likely felt the character of Laura Palmer to be uninteresting and non-compelling, in a tale that simply went beyond the standards of TV to feature language, violence, nudity and sex.  The nudity thankfully doesn't disappoint, because we finally get to see some of Laura Palmer we never got to see on network TV, including her topless body sitting next to Ronette at the Roadhouse, as she appears to enjoy getting orally pleasured by a guy under the table...

...and a few brief skin shots of her in her bedroom before going out on what will be her fateful night, including her lovely and shapely ass, and her firm thighs...

Of course, I can certainly appreciate all that, so it’s from the perspective of someone like me who followed the show, and has enjoyed following the bizarre art form of David Lynch, that I can offer all the personal love and praise I bestow on this film.  Like the Italian director Federico Fellini, Lynch takes the opportunity to be as self-indulgent as he wishes to be with material he’s been in love with for much of his career.  Lynch is brave in taking the small American town from TV and showing a darker, more horrific side of it in the life of a beautiful young woman we know is going to die in the end.  It’s this knowledge of Laura Palmer’s pending death that instills a psychological edge in our thoughts in knowing that there’s nothing that can be done to save her: Laura will die by the hands of her own father, and we know it’s coming with every terrifying minute that passes because we’re meant to understand what it’s like to be in her shoes as she suffers so horribly.

Despite its initial negative backlash (even by some die-hard fans of the show), FIRE WALK WITH ME has enjoyed some positive critical re-evaluation and cult status.  But like it or not, for better or worse, the film is every bit as weird and twisted as anything David Lynch has offered us before with films like Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart.  I mean, it’s TWIN PEAKS, for crying out loud, and in the end, may be all but critic-proof due to enough love and support that comes from people who understand the artist…people like myself and my old college friends who were with me that night over Labor Day weekend 1992.

Thank you, my friends, for one of the most personal weekends in the Hamptons I’ve ever experienced, and will never forget.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Special Agent Phillip Jeffries: "Well now, I'm not gonna talk about Judy.  In fact, we're not gonna talk about Judy at all.  We're gonna keep her out of it."