10/10/14 (Part One): What a Drag It Is Not Getting Older

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31 Days of Halloween, Adam and Eve, Anton Yelchin, art films, auteur theory, Bill Laswell, Christopher Marlowe, cinema, Dead Man, Detroit, drama, ennui, eternal life, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Ghost Dog, hipsters, horror movies, husband-wife team, independent film, Jeffrey Wright, Jim Jarmusch, John Hurt, Mia Wasikowska, Movies, Only Lovers Left Alive, romance, romantic films, Tangiers, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Vampire Code of Conduct, vampires, vampires vs humans, writer-director, youth vs old age

In certain ways, the classical notion of vampires is equitable with the current phenomena known as “hipsters”: vampires are intelligent, urbane individuals who look down on the dregs of “normal” society, take pleasure in obscure, archaic entertainments, consider themselves to be more sophisticated than those around them and lament the tawdriness of the modern age in contrast to purer, more interesting “times gone by.” Minus the blood-sucking bit and aversion to sunlight (well, perhaps not completely forgetting the aversion to sunlight bit…), that description sounds an awful lot like the current conception of hipsters. At the very least, both groups appear to share a common attribute: a completely world-weary and jaded viewpoint that makes snark and sarcasm more natural go-to responses than honest simplicity. For bored, ageless vampires, the business of “living” appears to be as much of a burden as “regular folks” are to the modern hipster. The whole thing is just so…gauche.

Auteur Jim Jarmusch’s newest film, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), takes the above parallel between vampires and hipsters to its logical extreme, positing Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as the bored, ageless vampires Adam and Eve, doomed to cast a disparaging eye on the wreck that is humanity for more centuries than they care to recall. Or, at least, that’s definitely Adam’s take on the whole mess of existence. In fact, he’s so agitated with the inanity of the “zombies” (the vamps favorite descriptor for humanity) that he’s commissioned a wooden bullet and plans to commit the ultimate act of bored defiance: if this world won’t cease its tedium, he’ll just have to cease his existing.

Eve, on the other hand, views things just a little differently. In fact, it’s probably easiest to view Eve as a Gothic variation on the whole “manic pixie girl” ideal: unlike Adam, she hasn’t lost her sense of joy at being alive. As she sees it, living for hundreds of years can get tedious and humdrum, of course, but it also allows for more experiences and wonder than any “regular” person could ever have. After all, she’s best friends with the one and only Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt)…how many “regular” people can say that?

This contrast between Adam and Eve forms the foundation of Jarmusch’s film, his rather belated follow-up to The Limits of Control (2009). As befits someone who tackles genre films in the most unconventional ways possible (Dead Man (1995) is a trippy art-film masquerading as a Western, while Ghost Dog (1999) is a treatise on Eastern philosophy filtered through a gonzo Mafia framework), Only Lovers Left Alive is a highly unconventional film. For one thing, there isn’t a whole lot of narrative thrust to be found here: much of the film’s running time is taken up with the relationship between Adam and Eve and what happens when she leaves her home in Tangiers to come see him in Detroit (despite being married for, apparently, hundreds of years, the couple live across the world from each other, which has to one of the handiest metaphors for long-distance relationships in some time). Plot points do raise their heads from time to time, of course: the couple is visited by Eve’s young, out-of-control sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), and must figure out how to replenish their exhausted blood supply. On the whole, however, Jarmusch is largely uninterested in the vagaries of a traditional plot: this is all about atmosphere and vibe, two fronts which Only Lovers Left Alive really takes to the bank.

More than anything, Jarmusch’s newest film is an art film: the emphasis is most definitely on mood, with evocative shots, exquisite slo-mo and deliberate framing taking precedence over any traditional narrative devices. To that end, events sometimes come and go with a sense of arbitrary randomness: Adam’s best friend, the human Ian (Anton Yelchin), is dispatched early on but it so much as cause a ripple in the narrative. Ava seems poised to serve as some sort of villainous character (she’s so selfish, obnoxious and derisive towards humans that she feels cut from a much more traditional “vamps vs humans” film) until she’s pretty much written out of the story without so much as a second thought. Adam appears to be a rock star, of some sort, and much is made in the film about him constantly hearing his music in surprising places (a restaurant, for example) but this ends up having no bearing on the story whatsoever. Like much in the story, these various plot ends aren’t meant to be tied up neatly: they’re used for seasoning, like salt on a steak.

Lacking any sort of driving narrative, the responsibility for the success (or failure) of the film rests solely on its considerable craft: as with anything else in his catalogue, Jarmusch is more than capable of not only making this work but making it work spectacularly well. For one thing, Only Lovers Left Alive looks fantastic: the well-lit daytime scenes may seem a little blown-out but the night-time scenes are exquisite and highly evocative. The score, all hyperbole aside, is a true thing of beauty: not only does it manage to elevate the film, as a whole, but Jarmusch’s musical choices are just a ton of fun, all on their own. The scene where Adam plays his music is pitch-perfect (apparently, vampire music sounds like droning, Eastern-tinged shoegaze, which makes complete sense), as is the truly nice moment where Adam and Eve dance to a Motown tune. The Bill Laswell instrumental that closes the credits totally rips and this was the first art film I’ve seen in sometime that practically demands I check out the soundtrack.

As with all of his films, Jarmusch assembles a first-class ensemble and puts them through some pretty excellent paces. Hiddleston and Swinton are absolutely magnificent as the ageless lovers: not only is their relationship genuinely romantic but the pair make a truly unearthly couple…they not only look but act and sound like age-old creatures living in an era not of their construction. Wasikowska turns in another great performance as the childish, casually evil Ava and is quickly proving to be one of this generation’s most capable genre actors. It’s always good to see John Hurt in a film and he tears into the character of Christopher Marlowe with gusto, although I wish he got a little more screen-time. Likewise, Yelchin and Wright turn in great supporting performances as Ian and Dr. Watson, respectively: Hiddleston’s scenes with Wright are definitely a highlight of the film.

As a huge fan of Jarmusch’s work (Dead Man is one of my all-time favorite films), I went into this expecting nothing short of greatness and, for the most part, my expectations were met. Only Lover’s Left Alive is definitely an extraordinary film, from the peerless performances to the gorgeous cinematography and back to the picaresque locations (the dilapidated, ramshackle setting of the once-might Detroit makes a pretty awesome, if obvious, metaphor for a vampire film, since the city seems as undead as the vampires). That being said, I still found myself slightly letdown by the film: there’s nothing inherently wrong with the picture – truth be told, there’s a lot about it that’s very, very right – but it still manages to feel somehow slight, at least when stacked up against his previous work. Whether this due to my perception or Jarmusch’s intention, there definitely seems to be a disconnect (at least for me), a disconnect that I rarely noticed in his earlier films.

Ultimately, however, my slight dissatisfaction ends up being a pretty moot point: Only Lovers Left Alive is a pretty great film and certainly one of the more interesting vampire films to emerge in some time. The main idea, that ageless individuals with access to all of the music, art, history and time in the world, can still manage to be bored and listless is an extremely relevant one in this day and age of the Internet: after all, humanity now has access to just about everything that Jarmusch’s vampires do and we’re not content, either. It’s an interesting notion, is this idea that having it all really means we get nothing. It’s certainly not the kind of idea that’s par for the course in most vampire films. When you’re dealing with Jarmusch, however, “usual” and “par for the course” are pretty meaningless terms: he’s been doing it his own way for over 30 years, now, and I’m imagining he won’t be stopping anytime soon.

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9/7/14: Anywhere But Here

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absentee father, Amanda Anka, Benicio del Toro, boredom, Chris Pontius, cinema, coming of age, divorced parents, dramas, electronic score, Elle Fanning, ennui, film reviews, films, Harris Savides, Hollywood actors, independent film, indie dramas, living in a hotel, Lost in Translation, Movies, parent-child relationships, Phoenix, Sofia Coppola, Somewhere, Stephen Dorff, The Virgin Suicides, writer-director

If there’s one big take-away we can get from Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere (2010), it’s that being young, rich and famous is just about as tedious and dull as it gets. Sure, Johnny (Stephen Dorff) may be a famous actor who indulges in endless partying, drinking and womanizing, attending one gala overseas movie premiere after another but it’s the in-between moments that are particularly telling: when not surrounded by paparazzi and sycophants, Johnny’s life seems to entail sitting alone in his hotel room home, drinking and smoking one cigarette after the other. Entitled? Absolutely. Glamorous? Not on your life.

Since this is the movies, however, we know that it won’t be that simple: there’s got to be some sort of catalyst for change. And there is, of course, in the person of Cleo (Elle Fanning), Johnny’s 11-year-old daughter. Johnny’s ex-wife has sent Cleo to spend some time with her absentee father and he’s reluctantly agreed, despite the monkey wrench it will throw into his wastoid lifestyle. Somewhere along the way, however, a funny, cinematic thing starts to happen: Johnny and Cleo begin to connect and the lay-about actor starts to feel the first stirrings of some pretty alien emotions – love, responsibility and a new-found sense of purpose. Perhaps there’s more to life than empty partying and pleasure-chasing. Perhaps it will be 30-something Johnny who finally begins to grow up, rather than his pre-teen daughter. Perhaps it’s actually up to the child to teach the adult the real ways of the world. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

As someone who thoroughly enjoyed Sofia Coppola’s first two films, the gauzy, hazy The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Oscar-winning Lost in Translation (2003), I was really looking forward to seeing Somewhere. While I haven’t kept up with Coppola’s career in the same way that I have her father’s, for example, I’ve long felt that she was a ridiculously talented writer/director who was managing to develop her own unique, distinctive vision, a vision that didn’t look quite like anyone else’s (least of all, her father’s). Alas, I found Somewhere to be something of a mess, alternating between deadly dull non-action and bizarre, awkward, vaguely nonsensical “arthouse” elements, none of which sit comfortably side by side. It’s a film that opens with a terribly tedious, repetitious static shot of a car racing around a track and then manages to one-up this tedium at every possible opportunity.

While there’s undoubtedly an intriguing film to be made out of the skewering of movie star lifestyle clichés, Somewhere just doesn’t have a whole lot to say. Sparse and spare to the point of feeling underdeveloped, the film comes across more as a series of tedious vignettes than any kind of organic, cohesive narrative: Johnny watches in abject boredom as awkward twin dancers perform a strange pole-dance to the Foo Fighters’ “My Hero”; Johnny watches Cleo figure-skate for what feels like 10 uninterrupted minutes; Johnny shares an elevator with Benicio del Toro (playing himself, natch); Johnny sits for a lengthy makeup session that involves the application of an old man mask; Johnny has an awkward encounter with a male masseuse who drops his own drawers since “if his clients are naked, he should be, too”; Johnny and Cleo attend an Italian awards show; Johnny and Cleo lounge by the pool…it (literally) goes on and on and on. Of the various “scenes,” most are deathly dull, although the bits involving the awful twin dancers and the naked masseuse are, at the very least, more entertaining than the mind-numbing figure-skating routine.

There are a few nods to an actual storyline buried in here (Johnny keeps getting mysterious texts from someone who asks him not to be an “asshole,” pushy paparazzi keep tailing him) but nothing ever develops past the most basic level: in essence, Somewhere is 90-odd minutes of minutiae and ennui. There’s no character development, even if Johnny, technically, finishes the film with a different mindset than he began it (never mind that his character arc ends with his car breaking down and he merrily walking into the horizon because, you know, “regular” people walk places): Cleo never seems to serve as more than a plot device, save for one nicely realized scene where father and daughter share room-service gelato and watch Italian-dubbed episodes of Friends on TV.

It doesn’t help that Johnny is kind of a shitty person to spend any amount of time with: he’s moody, disinterested in everything to the point of being disengaged and seems to exist in a constant state of horny boredom. At a certain point, his non-stop womanizing becomes unbelievably silly (Johnny is so desirable that anonymous women flash him, in public, and he always seems to be coming home to a new, mysterious, nude woman in his bed), although there’s something undeniably creepy about his tendency to follow strange, attractive woman around. Is it only considered stalking if the creep isn’t rich and famous? Inquiring minds want to know.

From a craft standpoint, Somewhere is decent but certainly nothing to write home about. While the cinematography, courtesy of frequent Fincher collaborator Harris Savides, features some truly beautiful night shots, it just as often simply revolves around medium close-ups of Stephen Dorff looking bored. The minimalist electro-score, by French electronica-pop band Phoenix, is so restrained as to recede almost completely into the background, providing the kind of generic score that could have been contributed by any number of faceless soundtrack pros. The acting is just fine throughout, although none of the actors, in particular Dorff, ever seem to display much beyond passionless disinterest and melancholic acceptance.

I really wanted to love Somewhere but I’ll be honest: the tedious opening set a tone that, unfortunately, the rest of the film was only too eager to fulfill. Although I’ve yet to see Coppola’s take on Marie Antoinette (2006) or her critically acclaimed recent film The Bling Ring (2010), I must admit that Somewhere has made me extremely wary. While one less than stellar film does not a career break, necessarily, Somewhere felt like an expansion and doubling-down of the worst affectations in Coppola’s first two films. I’m still curious to see what Coppola has in store for the future but count me as someone who would rather have been anywhere than Somewhere.