Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

I just watched this movie again for about the 13th time, and it just keeps getting better and better. This movie is amazing! I had the chance of following the series from the pilot to the final episode in a span of three weeks. I then watched the movie for the first time right after. Let me start by saying everything that happens in Twin Peaks from the series to the movie all makes perfect sense. This is something which needs to be viewed carefully, and thought about very clearly. I'm not going to tell you what I think it's all about but I'm pretty damn sure I know, and I know well enough to say this makes perfect sense. I will also say if you have not seen the television show Twin Peaks (season 1&2) don't even bother with this movie. I am truly tired of hearing people complain about this movie because of their lack of understanding. If you have not seen the show, you will not understand this movie.. So go out and watch the show and then think about watching this FANTASTIC movie.

Fmovies: I lack the ability to objectively scrutinize this film's value on a movie-goers' level. This film's artistry took me beyond the aesthetic and intellectual, and into a phsychological landscape I haven't been before or since.

One must grasp the chaos, or have been a witness to it in their own reality, to feel the depth of this film and Lynch's use of contrasting landscapes of innocence vs. evil, duality, contradiction, femininity, nostalgia, Etc., that somehow manage to make perfect sense: as long as we don't try to make sense of it. This film is about getting lost. It must be intuited, felt in the dark, to be truly appreciated. It's the only cinematic experience that I call "magical". I was unable to review this in an impersonal way.

Besides that, and for those who don't really "get it", the acting, directing, production, writing, plot, Etc. all make the film worth seeing more than once. But those are just the little things.

Bob, Agent Cooper, Laura Palmer, Teresa Banks, The Man From Another Place, etc...

Welcome back to David Lynch's offbeat town of TWIN PEAKS.

Much darker than the TV series, this film was in part meant to answer many previously unanswered questions, but if anything - in typical Lynch fashion - it tangles things even further, and confuses matters all round.

Lynch apparently shot more than 5 hours of the feature, and as much of these deleted/extended/alternative scenes are still missing, the movie we're left with feels rather bare and rushed.

The performances are excellent, and the movie is visually stunning, and as usual the plot - while confusing - is intense and riveting.

But alas it could have been so so so much more.... (sighs)

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me fmovies. If you were not a fan of the Twin Peaks television series you would not want to bother watching this film. Fire Walk with Me pretty much requires the viewer to have already seen every episode of the television show. If you haven't you will be well and truly lost as you watch this film unfold in the bizarre Twin Peaks universe. Assuming you have the requisite working knowledge of all things Twin Peaks heading in you'll at least be able to understand the film. Whether you'll like the film is an iffy proposition at best.

Fire Walk with Me is a prequel to the television series which means Laura Palmer is alive. But before we can get to Laura there's a thirty-minute or so prologue (a prequel within a prequel?) about the investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks, whom all the Twin Peaks die-hards know was the first victim of the killer who would eventually murder Laura. After what any fan of the television show will see as some typical weirdness, and not much in the way of resolution, the prologue ends and we move forward in time, jumping into the final week of Laura Palmer's life. It's nice to see Laura alive for the first time. The television show had already established Laura was not the sweet, innocent homecoming queen she seemed but her demons were, for the most part, only hinted at on TV. In Fire Walk with Me those demons are on full display. Where the television show was subtle, the movie is in your face. A little too much in your face some might say as David Lynch takes full advantage of all the opportunities provided by producing an R-rated movie. Certainly nothing is held back here as we watch Laura Palmer spiral downward towards her sad end.

In the rather brutal telling of the story of Laura Palmer's final days all the charm of the television series has been lost. For all the terrible things that occurred in the series the show always had that small-town, quirky charm. Not here. For the Twin Peaks fan it's nice to see those familiar characters again. And the film does add a lot to the Laura Palmer story and allows you to get to know her much better. But you may come away wishing you hadn't gotten to know her quite so well. Perhaps some things are better left unspoken and unseen. There were two sides of Laura Palmer and this film shows you much too much of the dark side. There was a lot of good in her, watching this film makes it hard to remember that even as you can't help but sympathize with the way she is being taken advantage of and the way she will meet her ultimate fate.

If you're a real Twin Peaks fan you really do have to see the movie. There is a lot to like about it. The story is captivating as ever, if decidedly less charming in this go-around. And the performances from the cast are mostly very good, most notably from Sheryl Lee who finally gets to play a living, breathing Laura Palmer after having been introduced to the world dead and wrapped in plastic. And Ray Wise as Laura's father Leland also does fine work in portraying a disturbing and complicated character. We never got to see Leland and Laura interact in the series and their relationship is fascinating to watch. Fascinating and also more than a little creepy as the movie's Leland is a constantly ominous, threatening presence. You'll miss Lara Flynn Boyle who for the film has been replaced in the role of Donna by Moira Kelly. Kelly fails to bring the same spark to the character that Boyle did. And while many of the characters from the show return you'll miss those who nota

This remains my favorite of Lynch's "difficult" films of the last decade, which include "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Dr." Absolutely no one can establish a mood of dread like Lynch, and this film is superlative in this respect. Images, sound design, and Sheryl Lee's near-miraculous performance all contribute to something much closer to a Horror Film than the genre with the actual namesake.

It seems that many fans of the Twin Peaks TV series were very disappointed with this film. I read over and over how "peakies" feel the movie lacks the "quirky, off-beat, kinda funny" tone of the TV series. Well, step back and consider something: the central themes of the movie AND the TV show are 1.) father-daughter incest, 2.) drug addiction, and 3.) murder. I guess we're all pretty desensitized, what with TV shows like "Law and Order" and Jerry Bruckheimer movies all purporting to give us action and thrills that are gritty and hard-bitten.

Lemme tell ya, that stuff ain't gritty and hard-bitten. Rape victims on TV shows are paper-thin stereotypes compared to the Laura Palmer of "Fire Walk With Me." Why? Because Lynch shows us the HORROR, the inescapable, fenced-into-a-corner hysterical inevitableness of a young girl who can't cope with her father's abuse of her, who then turns to drugs and increasingly can't cope with those either, and who finally sees the true tragedy of her life before it's even finished playing out. The wings disappear from the picture.

What "Fire Walk" offers in its portrait of evil and abuse is the full gamut of emotions, not just fear and anger (though there is plenty of that), but also aching, aching sadness, loneliness, abandonment. Lynch did a fairly good job of conveying this within the confines of a TV show with commercials (remember how the first half hour of the pilot was just people crying?), but in the movie he really gets to go town.

Incest and drug abuse are absolutely devastating. This movie is absolutely devastating, and so touches the truth.

There's no doubt about it, Twin Peaks changed the living, breathing face and body of television, the soul and minds of those who watched it, and the attitudes of film and television makers everywhere, who watched what was intended to be a 2 hour Tele-movie become a phenomenon. A phenomenon that dissected the way television was made and shown to its very core, and reassembled it in a fashion that no one had ever witnessed, or dreamed of. A phenomenon that would sweep the worldÂ… Not since JR was shot in Dallas had the entire worldwide viewing public stopped to ask itself a question, for one brief, shining, crystallized moment, in 1990Â… Who Killed Laura Palmer? And so, with David Lynch's Fire Walk With Me, the question is not Who? But rather, Why? This film precedes the TV show, these are the last 7 days of Laura Palmer, and after watching this film, it is pretty apparent why Laura wanted to die, she lived in a world out of her grasp and control, she was desperately fighting what she was becoming, but realized that the forces that were pulling her down, were too strong for her to fight againstÂ… I knew someone like that once, and to be quite honest, it has changed the way I look at Laura Palmer. The first time I watched this film was in 1992 when it came out on VHS, I was 16 or 17 and I hated it. It wasn't Twin Peaks. It was horrible and violent and had none of the cuteness and quirkiness and lovable characters of the TV show, and I never watched it again. Watching it almost 15 years on, as an adult, I understand why I hated it so much when I was a kid. As a 16-17 year male, I had absolutely no concept or understanding of what it would be like to be Laura Palmer, completely unable to relate to her, and therefore completely unable to understand or sympathize. Completely unable to understand what it would mean to live in a world where everyone is in love with you, and how that would only make you hate yourself more, when you hate yourself so much already.

This is a really sad movie. It really puts you in to Laura Palmer's world, or what's left of it, briefly. Maybe too brief, but, you know, maybe I read too much in to films, or I get too close too them, but this film has changed Twin Peaks for me forever. And it's quite possible that it will do the same for you. Even though she was dead before the opening credits, I never realized until watching this film again that Laura was never freed, she was always in 'purgatory' if you will, always in the Red Room when we saw her, or seeing a flashback of her murder during the course of the TV show. Fire Walk With Me gives something to Laura Palmer that she had been denied on television.

Release.

For the most part, this film was not made for the fans, nor was it made for the money, Lynch made this film for Laura palmer. His love of her is what inspired him to breathe life into her character on the big screen, after taking it away on the small. This is his dance, first and final, with Laura Palmer. It is not ours to be involved with, it is ours only to watch the romance between character and director evolve and be burnt too soon. It is ours only to witness, not too understand or judge, not to ask or question.

From the opening shot, a television with no reception, which is quickly obliterated by an Axe, it is quite clear that this ain't no TV show, and if the symbolism of the TV being smashed isn't enough to tell you that, then the opening scene will. This is the part of Twin Peaks that simply never would have made it to TV.