Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

I'm on my laptop, having just completed David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me from 1992. I should be downstairs watching the Democratic National Convention but I cannot handle the egotism of Hillary Clinton, the power she unjustifiably wields, the hideousness of the PUMA's, and the instigating, jeering punditry. It's possible she will speak with grace, humanity, and unity, but the injustice of her baneful influence upon this election still enrages me...

But onward with my assessment of Fire Walk With Me! It's not a particularly great film. Granted, I've only seen 5.5 (I couldn't quite make it through the entirety of Wild at Heart) David Lynch films: The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr , and now, Fire Walk With Me but I've noticed some clear stylistic, structural, and thematic commonalities between the latter four films (as Elephant Man is in a different category)...a list...

-fractured narrative (except arguably Blue Velvet)
-hallucinatory montages
-a neo-noir murder mystery at the plot's center
-sexual and/or physical brutalization of women (except arguably Mulholland Dr. However, Diane Selwyn suffers emotional abuse)
-a main character whose subconscious torment bubbles to his or her consciousness by the film's conclusion
-demonic figures who represent some aspect of said subconscious torment
-red herrings
-hothouse eroticism
-aw-shucks 1950's artifice
-hypnotic Angelo Badalementi score
-flashing blue lights
-red curtains
-symbolic recurring objects whose significance we do not understand until the film's conclusion (except arguably Lost Highway though the videotapes might count)
-and of course, a nightclub scene with supposedly live/performed music

For all the mindfucks unfurled from Lynch's bag of tricks, his best movies deliver a logical story with appealing characters and heartbreaking themes and ideas. Mulholland Dr remains one of my favorite films of all-time for its equal comfort and agility in portraying loosely related vignettes as in portraying the meat and potatoes of the story: Diane's tortured love for Camilla.

Fire Walk With Me works best outside the confines of its direct story, in its most Lynchian stylistic gestures, ie: his imagination wandering without explicit pressures from plot and theme. The first twenty minutes, featuring Kiefer Sutherland and Chris Isaak, functions mostly as an irrelevant, unnecessary prologue but also possesses moments of hilarity, menace, and buoyancy. Both a nightclub performance and a raunchy back-room dancing scene display Lynch's characteristic adeptness in scoring images to music. Such poetic, arresting moments pop up and make the film worthwhile. But ultimately, the unlikeability of the central character and the monotony of her journey grate.

Very soon after introducing us to troubled drug-abusing heroine, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) Lynch strongly implies her sexual abuse at the hands of her sinister father Leland (Ray Wise). Laura's denial and eventual acceptance of this abuse forms the basic progression of the movie. But rather than increase her agency or resolve, Laura's growing self-awareness increases her hysteria, paralysis, and self-destructiveness. The disrespect she shows the two people who care most about her: best friend and lesbian admirer, Donna (a sumptuous and heartbreaking Moira Kelly) and souful lover James (James Marshall) diminishes our sympathy for her. While anyone who knows anything about Twin Peaks, the television show, is aware that Laura must wind up dead sooner or later, her fate does not feel tragic or poignant because of the character's basic surliness, hysteria, and inability to help herself (or accept help from others) even slightly. All of these qualities would be more bearable if supplemented with depictions of Laura's good qualities. Even a key scene whereby Laura prevents Donna from being date-raped, comes with the caveat of Laura screaming nastily at Donna for stealing her clothes...

Sheryl Lee invests herself admirably in the character, but her face conveys raunchiness, dirtiness, and cynicism-- as opposed to the despoiled innocence her character represents. Patricia Arquette and Isabella Rosellini's descents into sexually demeaning oblivion in Lost Highway and Blue Velvet are infinitely more disturbing...Furthermore, Lee is not convincing for one second as a high school student. Despite perhaps being a capable actress, Lee seems fundamentally miscast...Or maybe I'm missing something?

Laying blame totally upon Lee is unfair. As I previously mentioned, Lynch fails to weave enough intrigue around the central conflict between Laura and her abusive father. The scenes between the two lack chemistry of any kind- perverse, antagonistic, or anything. Leland's evil is clear and Laura's paralysis prevents any actual communication...Plus Lynch gives her some seriously awful dialogue ("gobble gobble gobble" anyone?) and his camera lingers over her face about twice as much as it should...

As I stated earlier in this post, Fire Walk With Me has plenty of brilliant moments, but it's also weighed down by a poorly developed central conflict and an unappealing, annoying main character...Am I glad I saw it? Yes. Is it the worst movie I've seen by Lynch? Indubitably.