Director Report Card: David Lynch (1992)

8. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Only a year after “Twin Peaks” became one of the biggest shows on American television, it was discarded by the whims of the pop culture public. Viewers drifted away during the meandering second season and ratings never recovered. “Twin Peaks” was canceled but David Lynch couldn't get his head out of that world. In particular, he remained fascinated by the character of Laura Palmer. He wanted to see her alive. “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” would arrive in 1992, well after “Peaks”-mania had died down. Though announced as the first in a series, that would elaborate on the lore of the “Twin Peaks” world, “Fire Walk with Me” would receive utterly toxic reviews and bomb at the box office. Even many fans would dislike the film, disappointed that it don't resolve any of season two's cliffhangers. Now, the general consensus towards “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” is quite a bit different.

Teresa Banks, a drifter and part-time prostitute, is found dead outside the town of Deer Meadow, Washington. FBI agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley are dispatched by Gordon Cole to investigate. Little do they know at the time that Banks is the first victim... A year later, in the near-by town of Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer lives a double life. Homecoming queen and charitable pillar of the community, she's also a cocaine addict and sex worker. Since childhood, Laura has been sexually assaulted by a supernatural entity known as BOB, a resident of the mysterious Black Lodge. Now, as she uncovers the truth about BOB's identity, Laura is loosing her ability to balance her day-light normal life and nightmare-inducing nighttime activities.

One of the first images in “Fire Walk with Me” is of a TV being smashed by a pipe, followed by a chorus of screams. This is Lynch's not-so-subtle hint to the audience that we are not in Kansas anymore. Freed from the standards of network television, Lynch can be as graphic as he wants when telling Laura Palmer's story. “Fire Walk with Me” is a sexually explicit film, filled with graphic violence and frankly depicted drug abuse. More than its content, “Fire Walk with Me” is extremely tonally different from the TV show. It lacks the quirky humor and most of the show's supporting cast, with even Dale Cooper reduced to a minor role. None of the comfy corners of Twin Peaks are explored. This essentially makes “Fire Walk with Me” a film without an audience, alienating to core fans but far too steeped in series lore for anyone else. No wonder people hated it in 1992.

Instead, “Fire Walk with Me” is essentially an extended version of the surreal nightmare scenes depicted throughout the show. In fact, it's the closest thing to a straight ahead horror movie that David Lynch has made since “Eraserhead.” A free-floating sense of menace hovers over the entire movie. Otherwise normal scenes are interrupted by nightmarish images. A collection of the show's sinister spirits gather in a room, cavorting and talking among themselves, both in forward and reverse motion. Words strangely enunciate during extreme close-ups of teeth in a mouth. A snarling, talking monkey briefly appears later. Mrs. Tremond's grandson leaps out the shadows, dancing and jerking around while wearing a creepy mask. There's even a legitimate jump scare, when Laura suddenly has corpse paint on her face. In its last third, “Fire Walk with Me” descends totally into shrieking, strobbing, bleeding nightmare logic. Much of the score is composed of whispering wind and discordant noise, further creating an unsettling atmosphere.

Lynch's freaky visions always endeavor to create a specific mood in their viewer but, here, they have an even more pressing purpose. “Fire Walk with Us” takes us inside Laura Palmer's personal hell. This is made almost literal. Two truck drivers take Laura and Donna to an exceedingly seedy nightclub. Everything is bathed in devilish red light and the grinding music is so loud, subtitles are required. This is far from the only hellish sequence in the film. Laura, strung-out and high, witnesses a murder, playing with the grievous head wound. MIKE, the One-Armed Man, tracks Laura and Leland down on the road. The resulting scene is composed almost entirely of frenzied screaming, the frantic and terrified mood quickly imposing itself on the audience. Laura Palmer's life was a nightmare and “Fire Walk with Me” invites us to live inside that nightmare for two hours.

There's a pretty obvious reason why Laura's life is so hellish. Early on in the film, after another frightening encounter with BOB, Laura begins to suspect that the man that has been molesting her since she was 12 years old is her father. From there on, the sense of unease she feels every day only grows and grows. Though she medicates with cocaine, constantly by the end, it's still not enough to kill the pain she feels every day. Normal family gatherings, dinners and car drives, become tense and nightmarish exchanges. Every interaction with her dad is wrought with tension and unease. This is the world of the victim of incest, where the person you are suppose to trust the most betrays you in the gravest way. “Fire Walk with Me” takes all the feelings of pain, anxiety, guilt, and shame and thrusts the audience into that world.

As much horror as the film puts Laura Palmer through, David Lynch ultimately loves his Woman in Trouble protagonist. “Fire Walk with Me” is a film largely about the death of innocence. Laura's teenage, high school life has descended into a personal hell of drugs and tawdry sex, a pursuit of sensation to drive away the pain she feels every day. Yet Laura is well aware of what she's lost. When Donna insists on tagging along on a journey to the sleazy night club, Laura snaps out of her stupor once she sees her virginal friend about to be taken advantage of. The image of an angel, from a childish painting in her bedroom, haunts Laura. It's a hokey, antiquated image and that's precisely the point. Lynch, for once, is using his love of hokey Americana not for irony but a deliberate, sincere contrast. Laura longs for a simpler time in her life, represented by that angelic painting. Because Lynch can only watch her suffer for so long, the final scene allows Laura to regain some of that angelic innocence she so sought.

As much as “Fire Walk with Me” centers around Laura, it is not only her story. Leland Palmer emerges as the second key figure of the film. A classically “Twin Peaks” image of duality, he is both a devoted family and also a sexual predator. There's a reason BOB leaves his victim's unaware of their crimes. Leland himself seems horrified by his own desires. When he orders a threesome with Teresa Banks, and sees his own daughter as the other girl, he flees in terror. A simple scene around the dinner table becomes a moment of unnerving every day terror, as Leland insists Laura washes her hand, washes away the sin he sees there... A reflection of his own crimes. Ultimately, the father is torn in two by his need to love and protect his daughter and the disgusting, criminal lust he feels towards her. In a way, he's as much victim as she is. Ray Wise sweats and grimaces throughout the part, brilliantly capturing this double life.

A big motivator behind Lynch creating “Fire Walk with Me” was a desire to see Laura alive. Sherly Lee felt similarly. Lee previously only had the chance to depict Laura during sunny flashbacks. Here, she portrays Laura during the darkest, most chaotic days of her life. Lee's performance is a raw nerve. This is a girl going through the most extreme of emotions and Lee bravely embraces that. She screams, weeps, moans, and growls from under those golden locks. Never has giddy, drug-induced laughter been so unnerving. Yet even during Laura's calmer moments, Lee hints at the gaping raw pain inside. She has been beaten down by a lifetime of abuse, being accustomed to being used by other people. As close as Lee comes to playing Laura as totally dead inside, she still finds the girl's inner strength. After all, it is a final act of defiance that saves Laura's soul. This endurance, to not give up her tenacity despite so much pain and strife, is nothing short of inspiring. It is a powerful, complex, brave performance.

You'll notice I've spent almost the entire review talking about Laura Palmer and not Chet Desmond and Sam Stanley. This is one of the most frustrating things about “Fire Walk with Me.” The film begins with a lengthy half-hour long prologue about the FBI's investigation of the Teresa Banks murder. Considering the rest of the film is about Laura Palmer, it represents a true disconnect in the script. It's not that these scenes aren't entertaining. Chris Isaak – yes, the pop crooner – gives an amusingly smoky performance as Desmond. Kiefer Sutherland is fittingly nerdy and detail-orientated as his sidekick, a good contrast to Chet's exaggerated coolness. The setting of Deer Meadows is a mirror image – another double – of Twin Peaks, where the local cops are uncooperative, the diner staff is mean, and the coffee is piss. These scenes are full of comically odd touches, like the obscure way Gordon Cole communicates case details or Harry Dean Stanton's hilariously grouchy turn as a trailer park landlord. It's just that these scenes have almost nothing to do with the rest of the movie. This is when you really feel “Fire Walk with Me's” status as a spin-off to a TV show, with certain preconceived commitments to formula and lore.

Not that “Fire Walk with Me” especially feels like its small screen inspiration. David Lynch's exit from “Twin Peaks'” second season, and the subsequent downturn in quality, managed to piss off a lot of people. Kyle MacLachlan was reluctant to return, leading to a greatly reduced role for Dale Cooper, the show's most popular character. (Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherlyn Fenn, and Mark Frost wouldn't return at all.) Chet and Sam were created solely to replace the absent Coop, which the viewer definitely picks up on. The FBI scenes are fun, with Dale's enthusiasm for a mystery and his mystical ponderings, Albert's sarcasm, and Gordon Cole's shouting. Yet it can't help but feel like a tease for fans who wanted more Cooper, gratuitous set-up for a sequel that would never come. It certainly didn't help that this is also where the phantasmal Agent Jeffries appears. In-between David Bowie's goofy Southern accent, references to a mysterious “Judy,” and the film's freakiest freak-out – all within the first twenty minutes! – even die-hard “Peaks” freaks where left a little baffled and frustrated. “Fire Walks with Me” doesn't even really look like the TV show, lacking the trademark Pacific North-West visual warmth.

For years, rumors abounded about a four hour-long director's cut of “Fire Walks with Me.” After years of speculation, that footage emerged as “The Missing Pieces,” a ninety minute presentation assembled for the Blu-Ray. I suspect fans were satisfied with “The Missing Pieces.” It re-inserted many classic “Peaks” characters. Sheriff Truman, Dr. Jacoby, Big Ed and Nadine, Pete, Josie, Lucy, Andy, and Hawk were all cut from the film. There's a lot of oddball but light-hearted comedy, when Pete argues with a customer about what a 2x4 precisely is. Or when Lucy gets confused about who she's on the phone with. The deleted scenes also clarify, a little, just who the hell Agent Jeffries was and what he did. Fans likely would have loved it if these moments where included in the final film, as a few scenes even act as a sequel to the show's second season. Yet I have no doubt that focusing the film entirely on Laura Palmer was for the best. With these scenes included “Fire Walk with Me” would have been a meandering mess. The only scene that should've been included is a moment where Leland, Sarah, and Laura speak Norwegian around the dinner table, a moment of familial bonding desperately needed among all the darkness and decay.

David Lynch directly following his biggest mainstream success with maybe his most confrontational, polarizing work seems to back-up my supposition that the director was ambivalent, if not outright hostile, to his newfound popularity. Booed at Cannes and abandoned at the box office, “Fire Walk with Me” was, much like its main character, doomed to die. But time has been kind to the film. Separated from the hype of a TV show with a cliffhanger-filled non-conclusion, “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” can be judged on its own merits. What emerges is a bracing psychic horror film about the insurmountable weight of trauma and abuse. With a fantastic lead performance to guide us, and an unyielding atmosphere of dread, “Fire Walk with me” is a challenging and rewarding character study. If not for an unnecessary need to further link itself with the TV show, it would rank among Lynch's best, most disturbing work. [Grade: A-]