To celebrate the return of classic cult TV series Twin Peaks to our screens, there was a showing of the film sequel Fire Walk With Me last weekend in Cardiff, which Matt and I attended.
For those who don't know, Twin Peaks is a seminal piece of 1990s TV. Based in the titular Washington town, a quirky FBI agent arrives to investigate the murder of Laura Palmer- the high school homecoming queen- whose body has been found wrapped in plastic by a river. As Agent Cooper investigates, he finds that the town and its people have more than their fair share of secrets... Twin Peaks ran for two seasons (one very good one and one not so good one) and finished in 1991, with Fire Walk With Me released in cinemas a year later. Famously booed when it was showed at the Cannes Film Festival, it went on to received very mixed critical reaction and fared badly at the US box office, although bizarrely found popularity in Japan.
Essentially a prequel to the TV show, Fire Walk With Me starts with a young woman- Teresa Banks- being found dead, wrapped in plastic. FBI agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) travels to Deer Meadow to investigate her death. However, during the investigation, Desmond mysteriously disappears and it falls to FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) to continue the investigation. A year on from Teresa's murder, the action moves to Twin Peaks where we then see the last seven days in Laura Palmer's life.
Now, I hadn't seen Fire Walk With Me since the mid-1990s, so in some ways it felt like I was watching the film for the first time (although things did start coming back to me as I watched). I basically had two thoughts in my head after the film finished. First one: wow, that was even more weird than I remembered. Second one: bloody hell, David Lynch really put Sheryl Lee through the wringer, didn't he?
On the first point, Lynch has always had an eye for the surreal as anyone who has seen his back catalogue (such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet or Wild At Heart) can attest. I mean, there's a fair bit of weirdness in Twin Peaks itself- with characters such as the Log Lady and the Man From Another Place- but in Fire Walk With Me, it feels amped up to eleven. Starting off with Lil- who gives Desmond some clues to the case via interpretive dance- and ending with the weirdness of the Black Lodge, there's a lot of very strange shit going on.
But behind the strange visuals, there's a palpably tragic story being told which leads me on to the second point; Sheryl Lee's performance is just superb and absolutely heartbreaking. Laura is a beautiful, talented young woman who- from the outside- seems to have it all, but inside is suffering. As the story continues and we continue to slide to the inevitable ending, Laura becomes more and more lost. Lee must spend about 70% of the film crying, with the other 20% doing coke and the last 10% topless. It's a committed and very powerful performance. Lee was rightly nominated for Best Actress in the 1993 Independent Spirit Awards and Saturn Awards for her role.
The rest of the cast all do very well, especially Moira Kelly who was cast as Laura's friend Donna Hayward after original cast member Lara Flynn Boyle was unavailable due to other filming commitments. Donna is ostensibly a good girl but tempted to follow Laura into some dark places. Ray Wise is also superb as Laura's father Leland, a man with a few secrets of his own. Wise has a gloriously expressive face and can change from caring and lovely to almost crazed in a moment. There's a lovely turn by Miguel Ferrer, as Agent Rosenfeld, adding a little brevity and lightness to proceedings (something which is in short supply in Fire Walk With Me) whilst Kiefer Sutherland is strangely fitting as Desmond's partner Sam Stanley.
Kyle MacLachlan originally declined to appear in the film (due to a fear of being typecast) but later agreed to a small role, which is why Lynch and co-writer Robert Engels created the character of Chester Desmond for the first part of the film. Chris Isaak is perfectly fine in the role, but Desmond does come off as a poor facsimile for Cooper. Harry Dean Stanton gives a fine supporting turn as the irascible Carl Rodd, manager of the trailer park where Teresa lived, and gets a line which I think sums up Fire Walk With Me perfectly: 'Goddamn, these people are confusing.'
At the screening, they also showed The Missing Pieces, a selection of deleted and extended scenes from Fire Walk With Me. Clocking in at about 90 minutes, several scenes don't add much to the main storyline, although they include some of the characters from the TV show- such as Deputy Andy Brennan, dispatcher Lucy Moran and lumber mill owner Jocelyn Packard- and add some humour, but there are other scenes which really should have been added to the original film (especially a few at the very end which will prove important to the revived series). At least Lynch hasn't decided to go all Ridley Scott/George Lucas and keep re-releasing different versions of the film with these bits added.
Fire Walk With Me is a complete mindtrip. If you're at all unfamiliar with the world of Twin Peaks, don't use this as your way in. Even though it's a prequel to the events of the show, you need to have watched the show to understand a lot of what's happening, although that won't guarantee you'll understand everything; I still have no clue what the whole thing with David Bowie's Agent Jeffries is about! It's beautifully shot- kudos to cinematographer Ron Garcia- and Angelo Badalamenti's superb, sublime score is the cherry (pie) on top. It's bleak, unremitting, yet powerful and absorbing; very much a David Lynch film.
Tez
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