Emory Cinemateque: “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” (1992)

From the venue:

Emory Cinematheque Presents “The Cinematic Worlds of David Lynch”

With the highly successful television iteration of Twin Peaks canceled after two seasons, Lynch remained enamored with the layers of the show’s universe and the complexities of its central—albeit murdered and technically absent—figure Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). Fueled by the possibilities of returning to Twin Peaks without the content restrictions of broadcast television, Lynch audaciously resurrected Laura Palmer with Fire Walk with Me, a psychological horror prequel to the television series. Portraying the events leading up to Laura’s murder and her last days alive, the film amplifies the darker, more graphic, oneiric, and disturbing elements conditioning her unstable psyche and the paranormal disorientation running through her hometown.

Given its intricacies as well as its denial of the warmth and humor of its televisual sibling, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was a commercial flop and almost universally panned by critics for it incomprehensibility, or what some saw as Lynch’s troubling preoccupation with sexual violence. Despite its controversial release, Fire Walk with Me is now considered one of Lynch’s most important films: it extended the TV show’s plot backwards in time, a key factor in the eventual re-return of Twin Peaks in 2017. The film is also a fearless feature-length experiment in the so-called “puzzle” narrative that would typify Lynch’s cinematic output from this point onward.

White Hall, Room 208
301 Dowman Dr, Atlanta, GA 30322