In Regard to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
This movie made me sad and uncomfortable. A few prefaces, I watched this movie less than an hour after the finale of the series, I knew it was a prequel story with only a few elements of epilogue, I knew that the focus was removed from a lot of the prominent show characters which I was okay with in theory, and I knew that it was rated R...
I watched the series well after I discovered it and thankfully managed to go in with next to no knowledge of the show, but am also glad I waited because seeing a plethora of modern television before this series from 1990 made everything in the show that much more impressive. I was enthralled with everything about the show, and for the sake of talking about the movie I will address two of them 1. The beautiful lighting that made the town and the show look like another world. The lighting and set design made this town for me. 2. The wonderfully stark contrast between the 90% of the show that was a fun melodrama about a weird town, and the 10% that was a rough reality shock that made you feel uncomfortable for a moment, before jumping back to the whimsical melodrama. In the show these elements are dispersed sparingly and that made me feel the impact every time, subtle and forthright alike. With the movie I felt that both of these elements were completely lost. The direction is much more like any other movie and the “look” of the town is lost completely. I honestly went in expecting this, I know movies are made different, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing to someone who saw that as a key element of the universe. That said I was willing to forgive that if I garnered enjoyment form the rest of the film. The balance between whimsy and reality I felt was the much more meaningful loss. In the show those sequences of reality were sparse and that made them matter. In the movie, past the first half hour which I will address later, the entire movie is that stark reality. In essence the movie shows the events leading up to and including the crime which is the focus of the shows mystery. Slowly discovering these elements after the fact is balanced while seeing them in full form all at once is just depressing. That leads me into what I think could have, maybe not saved, but helped this movie – it should have been limited to a PG-13.
I want to emphasis that I try not to be a prude. Like all other things in the world cursing and nudity and hardcore violence, the R trifecta, can be used meaningfully or in a fun way. However, to unhinge a canonical universe in such a drastic way not only takes me out of the fiction, but also in the case of “Twin Peaks” makes it feel like a completely different franchise. Obviously the network television series did not have heavy cursing or nudity because of its showcase, but just because you can doesn’t mean it should be introduced after the fact. Seeing a character, who we have come to know how they speak and what they act like changed in such a way, even though it seems simple, is very jarring, and in a universe where the jarring moments have always been sparse the common place use of “The F Word” becomes overpowering. I felt much the same about the sequences with nudity. In the show the handful of scenes of sexual deviance were most often shown in such a way that while dramatic were not jarring. The movie does nudity as if it was just common place in this universe, which it wasn’t previously, and this again takes me out of the movie. Quite honestly I think it could have been used in, say, one scene (if you’ve seen the movie you can probably guess which) and it would have provided a very jarring scene that could have contrasted the whimsical rest of the movie. This leads the most important problem, there is no whimsy in this movie. There is an attempt in the first 30 minutes of this 2 ¼ hour movie. This sequence does not work for a few reasons. The first being that the lack of impact on the rest of the movie makes the entire sequence completely unnecessary and clearly only a forced way to bring Kyle MacLachlan’s character into the movie, which he has nothing to do with. Taking the action out of the town at all seems to me like an obvious bad choice, but making the world outside of the town “weird” like the town is even odder to me. I always felt that the unexplained contrast between the town and the world was interesting but should not have been shown to keep it that way, but that’s just me. This sequence teaches us nothing we don’t already know about the mystery (and this applies to the whole movie, but if we feel the need to tell the Laura story then at least the rest of the movie does focus on that.) The perhaps ironic part is that I would have quite honestly preferred to have seen an entire movie about this odd little sequence because at least it was a modicum of fun. The rest of the movie is made up of nothing but those “jarring” moments which are not fun unless they has the “whimsy” surrounding to offset them.
I’m sure I can find more I didn’t like but I would like to address a few things I did. The acting is fantastic and it is cool to actually see Sheryl Lee play Laura, even if I felt that she was limited in range by the direction of the movie. Frank Silva is still the creepiest on screen presence ever and his parts are fantastically done. I have no idea who they could get to replace the late actor in the future. The upcoming continuation of the show could go any way as far as I can tell, but I am sure it will be more in tune with this movie than the show. I want to try to be optimistic in saying that perhaps those obtuse “jarring” moments will me better distributed or at least presented in a way that makes sense, since in this series time will have actually passed allowing for change to make more sense than characters acting differently in the past.
Needless to say in the end I did not like this movie. People who watch the show and like it will watch this hoping for more of the show, and perhaps it will work better for others, but for me the movie was easily the weakest entry into the canon. In light of this I am interested in watching the some 90 minute compilation of deleted scenes that may add to the movie, but honestly I don’t anticipate that changing my opinion on the movie. For those like me who were disappointed in the movie I would direct you to the official audio book/play that was released mid-season 2 of the show called “Diane…” while it serves next to no importance to the series it is much more in tune with the universe and I found the 45 minutes far more enjoyable than any of the movie.
(This was written by someone who had seen the television series before the movie and watched the 2 hour 14 minute version of the film)
Originally Posted on Letterboxd.com
This was written in regard to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, a film created by David Lynch and others
