Given the acclaim that greeted Twin Peaks: The Return, and the classic status of Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, some might presume David Lynch has always been as beloved as coffee and cherry pie.
But by the time that Fire Walk with Me arrived in 1992, Lynch was in a critical slump, the initially adored Twin Peaks having been cancelled after a catastrophic second season. Fire Walk with Me, his sequel/prequel recounting the final days of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), is more in keeping with the terrifying ending of Twin Peaks than its more whimsical beginnings. Not yet ready for Lynch’s nightmarish vision, audiences were baffled by the film’s neon soaked, dreamlike strangeness, the cacophonous and disorientating use of sound, and sheer sense of horror.
Starting off as a off-kilter buddy cop film in which FBI agents Desmond and Stanley (Chris Isaak and Kiefer Sutherland) are investigating the murder of a young woman named Theresa Banks, twee soon gives way to terror when rogue agent Phillip Jeffries (an otherworldly David Bowie) shows up, taking agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLaughlin) back to Twin Peaks, and kickstarting the terrible fate that is about to befall Laura as her father Leland (Ray Wise) becomes possessed by the evil spirit of Bob. What follows is Laura’s descent into a nightmare, a step across the threshold of the Black Lodge, and the deepening of the liminal mythology of Twin Peaks.
Powered by phantasmagorical imagery, Angelo Badalamenti’s iconic jazz-synth score, and one of cinema’s greatest onscreen performances from Sheryl Lee, Lynch’s portrait of dreams and trapped souls opens up a space between worlds. Perhaps the director’s greatest film, Fire Walk with Me is as surreal and bone-shakingly scary as it is humane.