I think Fire Walk With Me can be appreciated two ways: as a standalone psychological horror film or as a culmination of the Twin Peaks saga (even though it takes place chronologically before the series - well, mostly).
If you go the first approach, there are things that won't make sense but it really does work on its own terms despite what so many Twin Peaks fans say about it being impossible to appreciate without the series context. That seems true as a Peaks fan, because you're noticing all the connections to the series, but most of those connections are actually kind of tangential to the story being told. When I first saw the movie (after the series) it blew me away and if anything, I wished it had been LESS tied to the series. It seems to be going for something very, very different. The #1 reason to see the film last, of course, is that it spoils the mystery of the show. Irrelevant in this case.
On the other hand, one of the most powerful aspects of the film on first viewing was that I already "knew" Laura Palmer from a distance, based on fleeting images, what people had said about her, and the facts we learned during her murder investigation. Thus actually getting to see her "in the flesh" was really startling and exciting. Honestly, though, the performance is so good and the Laura we learn about on film is so much deeper and more complex than in the series, that after a while I forgot what I knew about TV Laura and was totally absorbed in the Laura onscreen. I've also heard series fans complain that the Laura of their imagination was more interesting. I don't get that, honestly. FWWM's Laura is to me much richer than the surface picture of mythical homecoming queen/drug addict stereotype would have suggested.
Anyway, I DO like to see FWWM as the culmination of the whole Twin Peaks saga now, and the reason is the newly-released deleted scenes, which Lynch restored and assembled as a kind of standalone feature, very much to be considered as "part" of the Twin Peaks story and not just cutting room cast-offs. Most of these scenes don't require context from the film (which is partly why they were cut; they just seemed irrelevant to the overall story even though they often work quite nicely on their own). I suspect that even for people new to Twin Peaks, they would work as a bridge between the series and the film, a way to get closer to Laura while retaining some of the community focus from the show. A few of the early FBI sequences don't work as well as the later Laura stuff, but most of the "Missing Pieces" revolve around Laura.
So, yeah, my recommendation is - if you just don't think you're going to get around to the series any time soon - go ahead and watch the movie on its own. From everything I've heard, it works fine that way. BUT if you are going to watch the series first, and you have access to blu-ray (the only way to acquire the deleted footage right now) consider renting & watching the Missing Pieces between the series and the film. They aren't very spoiler-y, they are a great moody transition between the worlds of series and film, and watching them this way also retains FWWM's punch as the very end of the saga. When you see them all this way, you'll see why the final image of the film should end any experience of the whole Twin Peaks narrative: it brings things full circle but in a very unusual way.
Get Lost in the Movies on http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/
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