Review of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
“Twin Peaks continues with implications being that every trip around the loop will be different with each viewing. Perceptions and memories of people, places, and events may be altered largely or slightly but Laura’s conflict and the eternal struggle of good and evil continues indefinitely”
I find it so difficult to describe my attraction to the Twin Peaks universe because this feeling has been so intangible. I’ve written it off as me showing the show to others (which I have) but I think my constant revisits to this universe, and this film in particular, is largely due to the cyclical nature of Twin Peaks.
It’s not just that you notice new things on a rewatch like some Easter egg hunt, more so that your perception of these events change. The perception I have of Dale Cooper before watching The Return is wildly different than the one I have after.
And I find that this, and the pilot, are so easy to revisit because they are the nexus of this story. Fire Walk with Me is both the beginning and the end of this story - the haunting parable behind the inciting incident that prompts this whole saga, and the vanquishing of evil so central to one of the series’ main thesis.
But what draws me to FWWM in particular is how it functions both on the meta level that The Return incites with its haunting and cryptic ending, as well as on a more practical level - Laura’s tragedy. I find it incredible that Laura’s story remains so tangible despite the layers of supernatural and metalepsis. I am consistently moved by Laura’s story because it somehow remains grounded. Partially, this is due to such an ambiguous mode of interpretation that the show prompts - you can view the entire film as a dream of a trauma victim, or as a metaphor for the true physical and mental abuse Laura endured - which allows a more grounded viewpoint. But I think that this is also due to the mythical nature of Laura finally being presented to us, and despite the wild and outlandish claims made about her grandeur post her demise, Laura is just a troubled girl. And Laura, like the turkey in the corn, is a fable and a symbol for the anonymous abuse countless amounts of people endure that go frighteningly unnoticed and unsolved.
“She's in high school. She is sexually active. She is using drugs. She's crying out for help.”
“Well damn, Cooper, that really narrows it down. You're talking about half the high school girls in America!”
And yet, even though she cries out to others for help, she is ultimately the one who executes agency in her final moments to choose death over being host to Bob, despite others trying to take control of her story: Dale and his well meaning but misguided command, “Don’t take the ring,” James and his constant assertions of love, Harold and his concern against even the existence of Bob, and so on. What makes this story of trauma, a story treaded often in media, so different is the fact that despite being a victim, Laura is the one to defeat Bob in the truest form.
The final moments, her smile in the black lodge as the ever-so powerful “The Voice of Love” track crescendos, we come to realize that, in death, Laura has finally escaped the cycle of violence.
