Failed to Light My Fire (Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me (DVD))

Member Name: Zmugzy

Product:	Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me (DVD)
Date:	29/07/09 (160 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some good individual scenes and an excellent sound track

Disadvantages: Too many loose ends.

I knew before I stayed up until the early hours the other night watching this movie that it wasn't one of David Lynch's most successful and critically acclaimed pieces of work, but being somewhat a fan of his movies I thought I'd give it a go. It was, as I had been led to believe, a bit of a let down. This is a review of the film only.

I have been very much a David Lynch fan. Blue Velvet was one of the defining films of the 1980s; The Elephant Man was a classic and forever shall I look back in fondness to the first time I saw Eraserhead - one of the most impressionable films I've ever seen. Unfortunately "Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me" left me perplexed and disappointingly unperturbed.

Essentially the plot follows the fall from grace of Laura Palmer but starts off as a murder investigation when the body of a prostitute Theresa Banks (Pamela Gidley) is found in a river wrapped up in polythene. This initial investigation occurs in a trailer park in another town close by and is carried out by Special Agent Chester Desmond (Chris Issak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland). These two agents mysteriously disappear halfway through the film and what follows is Laura's gradual demise into depravity and self-destruction. Underlying everything is that Lynchian theme of something evil lurking beneath a façade of sugar coated loveliness, but what worked so well in films such as Blue Velvet, hardly works at all here.

Although I admire the ambition of the project, "Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me" has to be Lynch's worst indulgence. Now if you read many other reviews around the web one common theme is that you have to have seen the TV series to get the film, but for me this just won't do - a film should hang together as a complete whole and "Fire Walk with Me" is too fragmented with too many loose ends left untied. Take the discovery of the letter T underneath the fingernail of Theresa Banks - we never do find out the significance of this. Whilst some characters go missing without explanation (agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley) others lack development or explanation (Laura's male admirers). No doubt the film's incoherence has something to do with the fact that Lynch was forced to cut out many scenes on account of the producers regarding the original film being too long. The finale in particular is a very messy affair and for all the wrong reasons. If anything at all holds the film together it's probably the excellent soundtrack.

I will admit that the film does have its moments and on second viewing certain things came to light that made the film more enjoyable. There are individual scenes that stand out as classic Lynch: the subtitled nightclub scene is well done and there is a beautifully composed overhead shot of Laura lying down on a green settee speaking to her friend Donna Hayward (Moira Kelly). Sheryl Lee who plays Laura palmer acts her heart out but it's all in vain and I remained unconvinced by the juxtaposition of good and evil in her character, nor once did I feel any sense of dread or concern for her plight. Chris Issak and Kiefer Sutherland are also excellent in their roles and it's a shame they disappear so early on in the film. The only other memorable performance comes from the ever reliable Harry Dean Stanton who plays the trailer park attendant.

The film is full of the usual odd-ball freaky folk that regularly inhabit Lynch's films and there are the usual Lynchian symbols set in small town America: white picket fences, people wearing masks, green and pink furnishings, and flickering lights. I don't think the use of weird people doing weird things to disturb and unsettle was as effective as in previous Lynch films. For me there was really only one spooky moment involving the CCTV monitor and where FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) and Gordon Cole (played by Lynch) all end up ni the same room. But even this scene is perhaps somewhat spoilt by the fact that David Bowie looks exactly like David Bowie in the 1980s.

I would say only the most ardent of Lynch followers would get anything substantial out of "Fire Walk With Me". Nevertheless, although not up to Lynch's standard in my opinion, it's still not enough to stop me renting "Inland Empire", which I intend to watch tonight.

Summary: A David Lynch film - not one of his best.