Gregory P. Dorr
"The story had gone awry for me in the film. Because,
it's like the small-town values weren't there anymore, and all of a sudden
it was more about, you know, who's freaking out more than the other person.
The thing that was so charming about Twin Peaks was that everything
was underneath, everything was, like, hidden and submerged and bubbling...
and the film was just right in your face, and I didn't like that."
! Peggy Lipton (Norma)
Few would put it past David Lynch to intentionally create a
captivating cultural event and, at the height of its popularity, twist it into
something gnarled and incomprehensible, and then, for those faithful few who
stuck it out with him to the end, to serve up a careless, detached coda
amusing only in its disregard for those who await it. Not to say that Lynch
intended for the second season of his popular television drama Twin
Peaks to fall flat onto its silly, contorted face, nor that he purposely
fashioned a big-screen bomb to anticlimactically unanswer his sublime
mysteries. Not to say he did.
But you could see him doing it. And having a laugh.
Twin Peaks, of course, was Lynch's massively
influential nighttime drama (created with Mark Frost) that aired for nine
intoxicating weeks on ABC in the spring of 1990. Dark and quirky, the risky
show was a certified hit, winning with jaded critics, devoted pop culture
cultists and even mainstream audiences starving for a change in the texture of
Cosby-era prime time programming. The burning question, "Who killed Laura
Palmer," became a media preoccupation, and soon the airwaves were glutted with
shows aping Lynch's fetishes for eccentric provincialism and supernatural
evils.
However, in Twin Peaks' sophomore season Lynch's
attention to the careful and captivating mysteries and menaces of his
imagination began to wander. The show became silly, at times slapstick, and so
did its horrors become heartlessly cartoonish. The show was canceled, quickly
abandoned by its previously dedicated audience.
Lynch's last look at the Laura Palmer story was with Twin
Peaks: Fire Walk Me, a prequel to the television series that unfortunately
bears more resemblance to the tangled chaos of the show's final episodes than
the first season's brooding thrills. The film begins one year before the
murder of Laura Palmer, as FBI Special Agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) and
his neophyte, savant partner (Kiefer Sutherland) investigate the murder of
Teresa Banks, a crime that leads them to an oddball trailer park where Desmond
mysteriously disappears. From there, the narrative shifts forward 12 months to
chronicle the finals days of Laura (Sheryl Lee) and her tensions with her
boyfriend Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), best friend Donna (Moira Kelly, stepping in
for series no-show Lara Flynn Boyle), and her attentive father (Ray Wise).
Right from the start, it is clear that Lynch is in one his
more obtuse moods, frustrating the promise of a chilling credits sequence with
a shticky appearance by Lynch himself as a hard-of-hearing FBI bureau chief.
Following is a straight half-hour of relentless (and gratingly noisy) non
sequiturs, very few of which resonate with anything to come before or
after. It's Lynch at his most miserable, seemingly disinterested in his own
lackluster puzzles and covering up his carelessness with lots and lots of busy
noise.
Once Fire Walk With Me settles back in Twin Peaks
proper, recognizable characters try their best to anchor the story, but Lynch
parodies rather than reveals. What's most frustrating is that, on occasion,
Lynch will lapse into vintage Twin Peaks eeriness, particularly in the
scenes Laura shares with her father and in the story's inevitably gruesome
finale. These few moments are not only worthy, but imminently relevant to the
Twin Peaks canon. But they are very scarce. The film runs an
excruciating 135 minutes, with maybe 40 minutes of worthy material ! enough
for, say, one last hour-long television time-slot.
One particularly glaring alteration from the series'
small-screen incarnation is the transmogrification of composer Angelo
Badalamenti's memorably evocative, dreamy music into a rougher, less
distinguished rockabilly spawn that echoes Lynch's change in direction. About
a third of the television series' main characters return, but only Laura's
intimates. No sign of the Bookhouse Boys, the Martells, the Van Horns or Dr.
Jacoby. Kyle MacLachlan makes a brief reappearance as FBI special agent Dale
Cooper, and new cast members include Harry Dean Stanton and David Bowie.
New Line's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me DVD sports a
fine anamorphic transfer (1.85) and both DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1
soundtracks. The only notable extra feature on board is a half-hour montage of
playfully edited interviews with several cast members and some unidentified
talking heads shot eight years after the film's release. While most speak
warmly of their experience in the television series, few bear kind words for
this uneven, disappointing film.
From www.dvdjournal.com
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