Director: Jim Jarmusch
MPAA Rating: R
Film Pulse Score: 6/10
Vampires have been employed as metaphorical stand-ins throughout history, used to discuss topics ranging from drug addiction and sexuality, affixed with political connotations as symbolic representation of parasitic systems, as well as representing any number of societal outsiders. They’ve been connected to rabies, they’ve been used to account for unexplainable clusters of death, they’ve obviously even been psychoanalyzed, but this might be the first time that vampires have been used as a presenter of a director’s range of taste in the realms of art, music and literature; With Only Lovers Left Alive, writer/director Jim Jarmusch offers up his personal tastes via a narratively nomadic relationship drama populated with a number of culturally-refined bloodsuckers.
Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston play Eve and Adam, the former residing in Tangiers and the latter residing in Detroit, centuries-old lovers reunited through Adam’s ever-increasing depression brought on by the dire state of human society, successfully eroding his hope and motivation over the years. That is about it, plot-wise for Only Lovers Left Alive, but keep in mind it is Jarmusch after all, the director characteristically replaces plot with his lilting, ambling conversations covering anything and everything. Swinton and Hiddleston display an incredible amount of on-screen chemistry providing their respective characters with an immense amount of emotional depth, thus presenting their romantic relationship with an undeniable air of authenticity. The depth of their relationship goes without question.
Adam, a reclusive musician with uncanny wiring abilities has gone suicidal, or perhaps merely overly romantic…as vampires tend to be. Wanting to end it all, by way of wooden bullet, he alludes to his thought-out end-of-immortality plans over video-phone with Eve, prompting her to depart Tangiers for Detroit coming to the aid of her lover. They lounge around listening to records, indulging on bloodsicles or euphoria-inducing blood aperitifs, and enjoy moonlit drives about the ghostly sections of Detroit, giving guided tours of the city’s glorious past. The nocturnal tours are presented in ethereal corspelight by cinematographer Yorick Le Saux, showcasing the abandoned factories and music halls as the most logical setting for a vampire tale, there’s even a name-dropping, eye-roll inducing stop at Jack White’s house as a reminder that Jarmusch is friendly with the area-born musician.
Adam and Eve’s idyllic reunion, and the film’s casual flow, is halted by the appearance of Eve’s younger sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska), travelling from Los Angeles to seemingly cause trouble with her reckless abandon, effectively sidetracking the film’s incessant ruminations on literature, scientists, zombies (aka humans), Einstein’s theory of entanglement, fungi and other topics apparently near and dear to Jarmusch. That is, until Ava’s predictable story-line comes to a telegraphed conclusion (not before a White Hills concert stop), with Ava gone the couple is free to return to their wallowing and far-ranging world-weary discussions.
Jarmusch, along with Le Saux, beautifully builds an atmosphere out of perfectly selected locations, bathing the gloaming-set cities in an otherworldly, almost unnatural light coupled with the film’s meandering sonic-noise soundtrack that features, not surprisingly, Jarmusch’s band SQÜRL. A film that presents itself as a vampire tale involving an amorous centuries-old couple instead comes off as a vehicle, or rather an excuse, for Jarmusch to present his personal tastes while forcing the audience to listen to his music. Only Lovers Left Alive seems to present vampires as sophisticated elitists…and morose ones at that.
