Frezno's Criterion Challenge: February 2023 Trip Report

(TW: animal abuse, discussions of bigotry)

Welcome back to this thing! There's always a gap between when I write these and when you read them, but for this particular project it's bigger than usual. Whereas you get to see it at the end of the month, I'm here in the first week of February and I've only seen one of the films you're going to read about. It's a doozy, though, and I have some other thematic interesting films planned given the month, trying to match the general tone and ethos that is February. Before all of that, though, the continuation of the journey. When we ended January, we intersected with my journey into the ethereal realms of David Lynch with Eraserhead. We open February by continuing to do that, with...

The Impossible Dream Of A Walking Fire (Twin Peaks: Part 3) [Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me/The Missing Pieces]

(In addition to the content warning which you should heed below, I'm also going to add a spoiler warning: This post will reveal who killed Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks. If these writeups have made you curious about the show and you don't know who did it, I urge you to check out the show and see the mystery unfold for yourself. I have to talk about it to express the way this film made me feel, so I cannot be vague about it. Please understand, and tread carefully.)

(CW: parental abuse)

I've put this off for long enough, but when you understand what we're dealing with here I don't think you'll blame me. The last time we were here, we skirted around a secret shame, peeking into a girl's diary and finding only darkness and despair within. Despite that, though, there remained a disconnect. It was a disconnect that I myself created to try and shield myself from the alternative, which was too horrible to contemplate. A shield can only last so long, though, and its defense finally shattered. That last dark arrow which tore through me, which left me harrowed and haunted, staring in stunned silence as a swirling storm of inevitability crashed forth upon me? It was called Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. A film which I tried to tape when I first encountered the diary, but bounced off of back then. I was older and wiser now, and in the right headspace to watch the movie. As shameful as it was to look upon the Secret Diary, there is one positive. It did give me insight into Laura Palmer, and more importantly extra empathy for her plight and tragedy... and that's what this film is all about.