With all the hub-bub going around about the new season of Twin Peaks starting up again this May, I thought it was a good time to rewatch the entire series and the prequel standalone film Fire Walk with Me, before the series starts again in two months.
If you're curious, there's been a new Blu-Ray release of the entire series + Fire Walk + a bonus collection of 90 minutes of deleted scenes from the filming of Fire Walk; it's good preparation for the 18-episode season to come.
After the failed whimsy, the quirky soap operaness of the second half of Season 2, it's quite a jarring moment to be thrown into the darkness that is Fire Walk. As you can see in the deleted scenes from the film, most of the lightweight characters and storylines from the TV show have been axed to focus on Laura Palmer's (Sheryl Lee) immediate story; it's what makes for such a dark ride.
If the structure of the film seems weird, don't worry; it is. David Lynch envisioned three Twin Peaks movies and wanted to introduce a slew of characters into this first film as an intro. Lynch seems to be a "shoot a lot first, edit later" type of director.
The first 30 minutes follows two FBI detectives (Chris Isaak and Keifer Sutherland) following the case of the murder of Teresa Banks, a hooker/waitress and first victim of Leland Palmer. We also get introduced to Philip Jeffries (David Bowie), a mentally unstable detective returning to FBI HQ after a two-year absence. Although it's a sliver of a cameo in Fire Walk, we get another five or so minutes of screentime with Bowie in the deleted scenes, which still barely illuminates his storyline. Apparently he was the focus of the third potential Twin Peaks movie. Also, the Jeffries character was written in to the new season of the show but Bowie was too ill to film anything before he died.
But Sheryl Lee is really the central character/actor of the story and she carries the movie; I don't believe I've seen an actress cry and scream and shiver more. The film suffers a bit from a lack of levity - what shocked moviegoers when it was released after the show ended - but that's really not what Fire Walk is about.
Seedy, dark, depressing, and full of dread, Lynch ratchets up the tension as the story goes on. And since this is the prequel to a story we already know the ending to, it makes it all the more gut-wrenching to see Laura's final days.
Not for the faint of heart, but definitely inappropriately maligned when it was released, I have a feeling this film will be what the new season on Showtime will resemble, more so than the madcap antics of Season Two. With no commercial breaks and no major network rules hanging overhead, Season 3 may have a touch of the darkness and esoteric oddness of 2006's Inland Empire, his last feature film.
We have two more months before we start to find out. Put on your Julee Cruise records again.
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