Twin Peaks: Visual Soundtrack
Year 1992
Director Unknown
Actors None
Disc Layers 1
Source Laserdisc
Image Quality Excellent

This Warner Brothers-licensed oddity of Twin Peaks fanaticism, released only on laserdisc in Japan, presents the Twin Peaks soundtrack album accompanied by professional-quality, shot-on-video images of various Twin Peaks locations. Japanese captions and subtitles play throughout, along with the occasional English title card.

For those familiar with Angelo Badalamenti’s incredible score to Twin Peaks, the presentation of the images perfectly suits each track. “Laura Palmer’s Theme” plays over shots of an abandoned railroad car “graveyard.” “The Bookhouse Boys” takes you on a tour of the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Office. You’ll also get a glimpse of the RR Diner and its famous pies, among several other famous film spots.

Though it may test your attention span towards the end, this is an interesting piece of documentation for fans. In fact, the best way to watch it may be the imagine that the events of Twin Peaks actually happened and that you are watching a documentary film about the murder of Laura Palmer. The broken-down reality of the locations, in contrast with the romanticized beauty of the show, certainly make it feel this way.

The source for my DVD is the original laserdisc and the video quality is excellent. I wish the Japanese titles could be removed, but after a while I stopped being bothered by them. The scenery changes with each song, making what could have been the world’s most boring home video a moderately interesting look at the people and places of a real life Twin Peaks.