TWIN PEAKS - FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)

March 24, 2024

TWIN PEAKS - FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)

DIRECTED by David Lynch

SCREENPLAY by David Lynch & Robert Engels based on the TV series "Twin Peaks" created by David Lynch and Mark Frost

STARRING - (Many of the large cast of characters from the TV series appear in this film - many for brief cameo scenes only. In the interests of brevity - and because I cant be arsed to type them all down, nobody reads this bit anyway - I'm only including the characters central to the film's story here...)

Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer, Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper, Chris Issak as Special Agent Chester Desmond, Kiefer Sutherland as Special Agent Sam Stanley, David Lynch as Gordon Cole, David Bowie as Special Agent Phillip Jeffries, Ray Wise as Leland Palmer, Grace Zabriski as Sarah Palmer, Dana Ashbrook as Bobby Briggs, Phoebe Augustine as Ronnette Pulaski, Eric Da Re as Leo Johnson, Miguel Ferrer as Special Agent Albert Rosenfeld, Pamela Gidley as Teresa Banks, Moira Kelly as Donna Hayward, James Marshall as James Hurley, Harry Dean Stanton as Carl Rodd, Catherine Coulson as The Log Lady, Michael J Anderson as The man from another place, Frank Silva as BOB, Walter Olkewicz as Jaques Renault, Al Strobel as MIKE. (Phew...even with all the omissions thats quite a hefty cast list...)

PLOT - The year - 1988, The place - Deer Meadow, a small town in Washington. Local woman Teresa Banks has been found murdured, her corpse wrapped in plastic. FBI agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley are sent to investigate. However the two find the local Sherrif to be uncoperative and the whole town seems to be against them. At the trailer park where Teresa lived Desmond finds a mysterious ring. He reaches down to pick it up and vanishes in a burst of bright light.

Special Agent Dale Cooper picks up the case but fails to find Desmond or the killer. Cooper fears the killer may strike again...

One year later in the town of Twin Peaks and high school girl Laura Palmer is living a nightmare. She is being visited at night by a strange being called BOB who is raping her repeatedly. Her sanity is crumbling and she is turning to a life of drugs and prostitution to block out the pain of her nightmarish existence. Dark forces are coming together in the shadowy forests surrounding the small town of Twin Peaks and Laura seems to be at the epicentre of these strange events. Laura is certain of only one thing - Death is coming for her...

DIALOUGE - MIKE - " Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see. One chants out between two worlds...Fire. Walk. With. Me !"

PERFORMANCES - There are many talented actors who appear in this film - some in minor roles, some in larger roles - but the one person who Fire Walk With Me truly belongs to is Sheryl Lee as the tragic, doomed Laura Palmer.

Despite the character's iconic status (who HADN'T heard of Laura Palmer in the early 1990's ?) we don't really get to see much of Laura in the actual TV series. Afterall, she dies off-camera before the story begins, instead we just see glimpses and snippets of what she was like as a person - diary entries, recounted memories from grieving friends etc. Whilst Sheryl Lee does appear in the show (not just as Laura's corpse (and ghost) but also as her lookalike cousin - Maddie ) she never got to show us what she could do as Laura. Here we get to not just see Lee's unfiltered take on her iconic character but we also get to meet Laura properly and get under her skin - sometimes uncomfortably so.

Laura is outwardly a happy, confident, beautiful and popular high-school girl, but scratch the surface and we see the frightened, desperate, tragic figure that exists beneath. Laura is being sexually abused by her own father (OK- so he's possessed by a demon but the sexual aspect of Leland's abuse is a lot more explicit and nebulous than what we see in the TV show). To cope with this she has turned to drugs (Cocaine mainly) and to fund this addiction she has also turned to prostitution.

We see Laura engaged in her newfound "profession" - sleeping with sleazy truckers who are passing through the small logging town of Twin Peaks and hanging out in noisy and dangerous dive bars with all manner of criminals and undesirables. It's as bleak as hell and Sheryl Lee puts Laura's desperation, fear and sadness across brilliantly.

Film critic Mark Kermode described Lee's performance as "operatic" and bemoaned the fact that she really should have got an Oscar for it (she wasn't even nominated) and he's absolutely right. This is a full on intense "warts and all" piece of acting. Laura isn't always likeable - she uses and hurts people she really shouldn't be hurting, she turns people away who are only looking out for her but never do you get the impression that she's a horrible person in any way. She's just scared. Scared and broken and she makes mistakes, like anyone would in that situation. In short Lee paints Laura as a fully realised and realistic human being.

I think the image of Laura that most sticks with me is when she's getting dressed to go out on what turns out to be the final night of her life - crying and completely stoned as she struggles to put on a pair of stockings and suspenders - a scene that would normally be played out as being "sexy" reduced to a snotty, snivelling, harrowing mess.

When Laura's murder at the hands of her father eventually occurs Laura's dying screams will stay with you.

Equally brilliant to Lee is Ray Wise playing Laura's father Leland. Wise consistently gave one of the best performances in the TV show- here he takes it to the next level. Leland is possessed by an evil spirit - BOB - who uses him as a puppet to rape and eventually kill his own daughter. In the series its fairly cut and dry - Leland is remorseful and grief stricken when BOB isn't in residence and acts maniacally insane and sadistic when BOB is sat at the controls. Here though the waters become a bit more muddied. Far from being the respectable family man and pillar of the community the townsfolk think he is, Leland has a darker side to his nature that may - or may not - be completely independent of BOB'S control.

We see Leland engaging in an affair with Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley) - a prostitute who lives in Twin Peaks' neighbouring town of Deer Meadow. At one point he claims that Teresa reminds him of his daughter. Is this just BOB talking or does Leland actually harbour incestuous desires for Laura ? Is Leland an innocent man who has been corrupted by dark forces or was he an already deeply flawed man whose hidden perversions and suppressed desires made him an easy "host" for BOB to inhabit ? Where does Leland end and BOB begin ? There's no easy answer to this. It's this ambiguity that makes Leland into an even deeper and more chilling character than he was in the series. Wise rises to the occasion wonderfully.

A quick mention of some other noteable performances - firstly we get Moira Kelly playing Laura's best friend Donna Hayward. Donna was a regular in the TV show but there she was played by Lara Flynn Boyle. Due to a behind the scenes falling out with Lynch, Flynn Boyle was not asked to re-create her TV role for the movie and instead the character of Donna was recast. I actually prefer Moira Kelly in the role if I'm being honest. It must have been hard to step into such well established shoes (Flynn Boyle was in pretty much every episode of the series afterall) but Kelly totally makes the character her own within minutes of being onscreen.

Kelly gives us a much more sympathetic and innocent Donna than we got in the series, a shy quiet girl who aspires to be like her best friend little knowing the horrors that Laura is both being subjected (and subjecting herself) to. Laura is trying to shield her friend from the truth but Donna is also one of many people she pushes away as a result. This leads Donna into some dangerous situations later on (both in the film and the TV show). Moira Kelly is just more likeable than Lara Flynn Boyle was in the show, plus did I mention that she's absolutely adorable as well ?...

One person I haven't mentioned much is Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Cooper, the reason for that is he's not in the film much. He gets a few scenes during the prologue and a cameo at the very end but that's it. What we see of him shows a slightly younger, more inexperienced Cooper, he's only just starting to get the dreams and visions that drive the character in the TV show. MacLachlan is still very good as Cooper but I can see why some fans where disappointed that we didn't get to see more of him in the movie.

In the prologue (almost as a stand-in for Cooper) we get Chris Issak playing another FBI agent - Chester "Chet" Desmond who is teamed up with forensics expert Sam Stanley (a wonderfully geeky "playing against type" turn by Kiefer Sutherland). Desmond is like a cooler, more cynical, more two-fisted version of Cooper. To say that Issak is a musician first and foremost rather than an actor he does a really good job as Desmond. Issak and Sutherland make a great double act and I'd have quite liked to see Lynch do a film or series about these two characters having thier own off-beat adventures.

Speaking of musicians turning thier hands to acting we also get David Bowie playing a time displaced FBI agent - Philip Jeffries. He's not in it for long but its a memorable cameo all the same (particularly Bowie's affected southern states drawl) and Jeffries was to become a key background player in Twin Peaks season 3 (even though Bowie had passed away before the series began filming). So, if nothing else his appearance here is important to Twin Peaks' overall mythology.

SFX - A few in-camera "trick" shots but not much in the way of effects really - it's just not that kind of film.

SEX & VIOLENCE - A very disturbing rape scene where Laura sees BOB'S face morph into Leland's thus causing Laura to learn the horrible truth about who her abuser (and eventual killer) really is.

We also see Laura engaged in various sexual activities with a variety of sleazy scumbags.

At one point Bobby Briggs semi-accidently shoots a drug dealer dead (thus explaining the line on the TV show "Bobby killed a guy" which was never elaborated on further ).

Leland/BOB kills Teresa Banks by smashing her brains in with a lead pipe.

Laura's murder is just as harrowing as you would expect. Leland/BOB heards Laura and fellow prostitute - Ronnette Pulaski - like a pair of sledge dogs to a disused railway car in the woods.

Once there Leland/BOB beats Ronette to near-death and beats Laura to actual death. Laura's screams echo through the dark night...

Leland/BOB wraps Laura's body in plastic and dumps it in the water where it drifts downstream (and into television history). Laura is found the next day by fisherman Pete Martell (Jack Nance) but that doesn't happen until episode 1 of the TV series...

RATING - At the time of it's release Fire Walk With Me was almost universally panned by critics and fans alike. This was mainly for all the things the film wasn't. It WASN'T a continuation of the TV show. It WASN'T a means of resolving the cliffhanger that the series ended on. It WASN'T a surrogate season 3. It WASN'T a star vehicle for the further adventures of Agent Cooper. The first quarter of the film didn't even take place in Twin Peaks. But these criticisms where all missing the point of what the film actually WAS. It was an insight into abuse. It was a metaphysical horror film. It was a depiction of a nightmare. It was a dark, atmospheric thrill ride with great performances and rich characterisation. And...it was the linchpin (or Lynchpin if you will) around which the future of Twin Peaks was to revolve. It wasn't a sequal - It was a prequel that set up the sequal - everything that was to come some 25 years later in 2017 had it's foundations set here. Fire Walk With Me isn't an easy watch...but it IS worth your time.