Jim Jarmusch (USA, born 1953)

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

(This review was written as part of the BBC’s 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century and does not necessarily read as well when taken out of its original context. It is reproduced here for the convenience of having a director’s works collected on the same page.)

Only Lovers Left Alive is a vampire movie. It has a smart script which slyly, but only slightly, subverts the kind of tropes one might expect from a vampire movie. If you’ve seen other Jarmusch films, you probably know what you’re getting- it’s erudite, esoteric, quirky without being contrived, arthouse without being overly obtuse or inaccessible, and hovers, in a measured, controlled way, between realist and fanciful. It all looks pretty good, too.

For the most part, Only Lovers Left Alive ticks along quite nicely, especially in its more plot-driven second half, when we even get the occasional quick streak of wicked comedy. The use of very cool, retro music calls to mind a calmer, less exhibitionist Quentin Tarantino, with all the violence taken out (there is no onscreen violence in the film, and except for a single instance of brief nudity, there is no sex either). It also- especially in its comic scenes following the introduction of Ava- sometimes resembled what might result if Alexander Payne made a vampire film.

It has a stellar cast, and they inevitably deliver. As would be expected from Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston and John Hurt, the acting strikes all the right notes, with Mia Wasikowska, Jeffrey Wright, and the late Anton Yelchin all on hand to provide exceptional support. It does not, however, feel as if the actors- any of them- are particularly stretching themselves. It doesn’t feel like the director is stretching himself too much either. This apparent effortlessness, however, is part of its charm, and is almost certainly a significant aspect of Jarmusch’s skillset. And of course, not every work has to be extraordinarily intensive or hugely ambitious.

The chief pleasure of Only Lovers Left Alive is to see an auteur director who is in complete command of his craft, who feels no need to make a tour de force film or impress any grand attempts at virtuosity on his audience. Consequently, this movie is solid and enjoyable, and I liked it. There was very little to dislike. However, notwithstanding the poignant shots of a crumbling, collapsing Detroit, it’s also a relatively light movie that doesn’t necessarily seem designed to stay with you long after the credits have rolled.

That being said, the film’s frightening final shot re-contextualises the entire film, and forces us to see our principal characters in a completely different light. There may be a point there about how rational, reasonable people can still be perfectly capable of dark, hurtful behaviour, especially if they are backed into a corner. It also brings into focus how one person’s thoughtless, inconsiderate actions can potentially have dire consequences for people thousands of miles away who they’ll never meet. We see that Adam was completely right to be so rude and unwelcoming to Ava. We see that, sometimes, 87 years really isn’t long enough.

Dead Man (1995)

Dead Man initially provides a set-up with a certain amount of promise. In the 1800s, bespectacled, mild-mannered cityboy William (Johnny Depp) is travelling out to the darkest recesses of the wild west, literally ‘the end of the line’. He has been offered a job there, and for reasons left unknown, he is desperate enough to take it. The town, Machine, has been well-realised with an elaborate-looking set. Its inhabitants are played by the very famous actors Robert Mitchum, John Hurt and Gabriel Byrne, whilst Crispin Glover is possibly another resident or a regular visitor. The less famous Mili Avital plays a plucky young hussy, adding a very welcome female presence to this structural palette. Dead Man is gearing up to be a film set within and around this town, exploring its dynamics with a stellar ensemble cast, and concerning the inevitably awkward way that William will somehow try to fit in, maybe make his fortune.

Jarmusch doesn’t make that film at all. He doesn’t want to. He’s got something completely different in mind- something far less straightforward, far less commercial, and in all likelihood, far less enjoyable (spoilers ahead).        

Events spiral in a way that sees our hero spend about five-sixths of the movie wandering the wilderness. Overwhelmingly, that is the bulk of the film, its main heft. The opening scenes were merely a way to place William in this situation, and now that’s accomplished, Jarmusch is able to milk it dry.

Dead Man is a film which aims for audience puzzlement, that wants to have a self-consciously strange, befuddling tone, and succeeds. It is shot through with moments of hardcore violence and snippets of bizarro deadpan comedy. It is also, almost unavoidably, very very boring at times. What, exactly, is Dead Man’s endgame, its ‘point’? Is it merely to show us that the old west is a place that is relentlessly nasty, unforgiving and deadly beyond our pampered comprehensions, both inside and outside the towns (something that the bookish William adjusts to with surprising aplomb, even when mortally wounded)?

The film makes a point of having its famous faces and their acting talents only feature in the film for mere moments- their characters either immediately die after a single scene or, on other occasions, the movie simply moves on and we never see or hear from them again. Along with Mitchum, Hurt, Byrne and Glover, this also occurs with Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina and- of all people- Iggy Pop, as William, with no stated destination in mind, languidly traverses the scorched, unforgiving landscape. Instead, a major role and lots of screentime is given to the clearly non-professional Gary Farmer, whose unconvincing performance is probably supposed to strike a note of charming outsider naïvety. All of this is brewed up into a big melting pot and handed to the befuddled viewer, who may or may not feel aggrieved that some unfathomable hipster joke is being played on them.

My feelings about the film are mixed. On the one hand, I admired how utterly unusual it was, along with its refusal to play by any rules and the air of dark, unforgiving mystery which it successfully created. On the other, the film was an endurance test that I don’t feel adequately rewarded the patience it took to complete it. Depp’s central character was too passive in the face of his ordeal and lacked the required richness and complexity to carry a movie of this type.

If you can’t work out what the writer-director’s aims were- and I guess you’re not really supposed to know- then it is almost impossible to judge whether those aims were achieved. At the time, Roger Ebert wrote ‘Jim Jarmusch is trying to get at something here, and I don’t have a clue what it is.’ I don’t know either, but I’m perfectly willing to believe that he is not really getting at anything- that the film’s juxtapositions of realism with mysticism, solemnity with quirkiness, and brutality with brooding introspection do not ultimately add up to anything, except possibly an attempt to make the viewer feel a little more meditative and a little more existential than they did before beginning the piece (which worked, in my view).

It's kinda beautiful, in its own way, especially as it dejectedly drifts towards its plaintive conclusion, but it’s a piece with an extremely narrow appeal. If you consider the conveyor belt of Hollywood insipid, want something completely different, and happen to love No Country for Old Men and The Proposition, then this comes quietly and tentatively recommended. And if you wish Apichatpong Weerasethakul would make a western, then you’ve struck gold.