Like Permanent Vacation, this film establishes Jarmusch as standing for something alternative to the conventions of mainstream American cinema. It is altogether a more mature collaboration than Permanent Vacation, a stronger indication of important artistic sensibilities, and perhaps exhibits a more solid bond between aim and execution. It is where the boat moored after Permanent Vacation, so it is out of the same universe, the same general headspace, but in a different country, a new world.
I'll recount a part of the story, because I liked it.
Willie lives in Purgatory, somewhere in New York. He comes from Hungary, but suppresses his European heritage under a facade of hip film-noir Americanism. His cousin, Eva (the femme fatale if we see it as noir), who has just arrived in America from Budapest, blows into his life like bad news from an Aunt Lotte in Cleveland. Willie is forced to 'babysit' Eva while his aunt stays in hospital for 10 days. He is aggrieved by this disruption to his life, even though TV dinners, games of solitaire, and long sleeps are about the only things to disrupt.
Willie's small, dour apartment holes them up for the duration like the prison in Down By Law. Their time together is uneventful in the large, but very frank in revealing the slow time ordinariness and emotional seclusion of Willie's life. He bans Eva from speaking in Hungarian even though he knows the language, he forbids her from answering his phone, prohibits her from going anywhere with him, presumably because it would contradict the barricade of his cool, noirish, self-image, and impatiently attempts to educate her in Americanisms he barely understands himself. Their only interruption from themselves or each other is a visit from Willie's gambling buddy, Eddie, whose warm and polite attempts to include Eva in their adventures outside are upset by his deference to Willie's personality. When it comes time for Eva to leave for Cleveland, Willie has acted upon a bud of affection but can only express it in jaded terms. He insists Eva wear a dress he bought for her, even though she doesn't like it, because she should dress like an American when she is in America.
This is where the first part ends, or nearly. On the street, after Eva and Willie have exchanged goodbyes, Eddie finds Eva abandoning the dress that Willie bought as a gift. Eddie does not mention this to Willie, presumably because he does not want to hurt his feelings. It is all unspoken. Willie and Eddie sit and drink beer, both reflect on Eva's visit without speaking.
Originally, the film ends here. It was shot using leftover film from Wim Wenders' The State of Things. A year or two later, the group decided to extend the film or finish it. I won't go into the next 2/3. Suffice to say, after hustling some money in a poker game a year later, Willie and Eddie decide to visit Eva in Cleveland. Perhaps Willie realised he was missing something and Eddie did hide a profound sense of loneliness.
Stranger Than Paradise is shot in a way that subverts mainstream notions of entertainment and engagement. It is an action film, but its definition of action is subtle and internal, left to the sensitivities of the watcher to engage with. The weather is a strong and active force, negotiating the lives of the characters like another character. This, I guess, has something to do with Ozu, mentioned by Eddie in his reference to Tokyo Story as the horse to back while he reads Willie the odds.
Jarmusch has been strongly influenced by and is educated in World cinema, establishing him as a kind of outsider at home, just like the characters. The film with its surface deadpan, hangs back from the perspectives of its characters in a kind of suspended relativism, which is throughout all of Jarmusch's work. The emotional depth is neither affirmed or denied. There is no absolute position.
John Lurie (he played Willie and composed the music) composed sparse and sensitive strings to comment on his character, which serves to further the gap between the film's stance and its subject. This general stance does not endorse Willie's peevish superficiality nor does it extrapolate it into misfortune. It suggests a more natural, but didactic approach. A film noir protagonist's end always reflects on their preceding actions.
Watch it if you haven't, watch it again if you have, or don't watch it. But it would surely fit any worthwhile definition of a 'good' film.
I'll recount a part of the story, because I liked it.
Willie lives in Purgatory, somewhere in New York. He comes from Hungary, but suppresses his European heritage under a facade of hip film-noir Americanism. His cousin, Eva (the femme fatale if we see it as noir), who has just arrived in America from Budapest, blows into his life like bad news from an Aunt Lotte in Cleveland. Willie is forced to 'babysit' Eva while his aunt stays in hospital for 10 days. He is aggrieved by this disruption to his life, even though TV dinners, games of solitaire, and long sleeps are about the only things to disrupt.
Willie's small, dour apartment holes them up for the duration like the prison in Down By Law. Their time together is uneventful in the large, but very frank in revealing the slow time ordinariness and emotional seclusion of Willie's life. He bans Eva from speaking in Hungarian even though he knows the language, he forbids her from answering his phone, prohibits her from going anywhere with him, presumably because it would contradict the barricade of his cool, noirish, self-image, and impatiently attempts to educate her in Americanisms he barely understands himself. Their only interruption from themselves or each other is a visit from Willie's gambling buddy, Eddie, whose warm and polite attempts to include Eva in their adventures outside are upset by his deference to Willie's personality. When it comes time for Eva to leave for Cleveland, Willie has acted upon a bud of affection but can only express it in jaded terms. He insists Eva wear a dress he bought for her, even though she doesn't like it, because she should dress like an American when she is in America.
This is where the first part ends, or nearly. On the street, after Eva and Willie have exchanged goodbyes, Eddie finds Eva abandoning the dress that Willie bought as a gift. Eddie does not mention this to Willie, presumably because he does not want to hurt his feelings. It is all unspoken. Willie and Eddie sit and drink beer, both reflect on Eva's visit without speaking.
Originally, the film ends here. It was shot using leftover film from Wim Wenders' The State of Things. A year or two later, the group decided to extend the film or finish it. I won't go into the next 2/3. Suffice to say, after hustling some money in a poker game a year later, Willie and Eddie decide to visit Eva in Cleveland. Perhaps Willie realised he was missing something and Eddie did hide a profound sense of loneliness.
Stranger Than Paradise is shot in a way that subverts mainstream notions of entertainment and engagement. It is an action film, but its definition of action is subtle and internal, left to the sensitivities of the watcher to engage with. The weather is a strong and active force, negotiating the lives of the characters like another character. This, I guess, has something to do with Ozu, mentioned by Eddie in his reference to Tokyo Story as the horse to back while he reads Willie the odds.
Jarmusch has been strongly influenced by and is educated in World cinema, establishing him as a kind of outsider at home, just like the characters. The film with its surface deadpan, hangs back from the perspectives of its characters in a kind of suspended relativism, which is throughout all of Jarmusch's work. The emotional depth is neither affirmed or denied. There is no absolute position.
John Lurie (he played Willie and composed the music) composed sparse and sensitive strings to comment on his character, which serves to further the gap between the film's stance and its subject. This general stance does not endorse Willie's peevish superficiality nor does it extrapolate it into misfortune. It suggests a more natural, but didactic approach. A film noir protagonist's end always reflects on their preceding actions.
Watch it if you haven't, watch it again if you have, or don't watch it. But it would surely fit any worthwhile definition of a 'good' film.