Make no mistake about it, when Jim Jarmusch makes a
vampire movie, he’s not jumping on the popularity bandwagon behind “True Blood”
and the Twilight series. Those pieces
of pop culture are so far outside the realm of what Jarmusch is known for that
if he even gave them a second thought while he was writing and developing Only Lovers Left Alive, it was to check
in on the ways his movie would be a hipper, cooler, and more loath response to
soap opera lust.
Jarmusch is, if nothing else, eternally cool and hip.
This is true even though his greatest audience, the film buffs who came of age
in the late 80s and early 90s, have now reached middle age and probably don’t
have much time for indie cinema anymore. Because to watch a vampire movie made
by this craftsman whose signature style is contemplation, reservation, and
quietude followed by the inevitably dry offhand remark is to see the coolest
damn vampires the movies have ever given us.
I hesitate to offer much in the way of plot description.
Jarmusch films are rarely long on plot. They are mood pieces. His interest lies
in creating a certain mystique, an aura around his characters, the majority of
whom offer little in the way of conversation. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston
play a pair of vampire lovers. She resides in Tangier while he works on his
rock music in far off Detroit. Jarmusch leaves it to the viewer to guess why
they don’t live together. My guess is that after centuries of being in love and
together, being an overnight plane ride away (yes, that’s how they get around)
and not seeing each other for months or possibly years at a time doesn’t seem
so long. They are named Adam and Eve. Are we meant to think they are the first
couple? Doubtful. That’s probably Jarmusch having a little fun with suggestion.
But they do come together, mainly because Adam is feeling
depressed of late, brought down by humanity, whom they refer to as zombies.
Adam lives an analog life in a digital world. His well-paid human gofer, Ian
(Anton Yelchin), brings him classic guitars. His house – sitting on the
outskirts of the city in a derelict neighborhood, is outfitted with an old
television, CCTV cameras, and a system of cords and wires strewn about the
place. When Eve does a little Facetime, he has to make a series of connections
to get her image on his TV, while his laptop webcam captures his own. Their
existence gets injected with a bit of unpredictability when Eve’s sister, Ava
(Mia Wasikowska) arrives from L.A. While Adam and Eve are content to go for
lonely nighttime drives, marveling at the now defunct Michigan Theater and its
once grand beauty, now a parking garage, Ava wants to go clubbing and maybe
drink a little blood.
Apparently blood is a scarce commodity for vampires what
with humanity poisoning their blood the way they do their water, Adam
complains. He gets his supply of O negative from a hospital doctor played by
Jeffrey Wright. In Tangier, Eve goes through her old friend Christopher Marlowe
(yes, that one), played by as grizzled and weary by John Hurt. What little
uncontaminated blood they come across is rationed and drunk slowly. Why don’t
they just attack people? “This is the 21st century, Adam declares to
Ava. I guess they’ve become more civilized as a means of survival in a world of
complex forensics.
Marlowe still regrets not taking credit for the work of
Shakespeare and wishes he’d met Adam earlier so he could have served as a
better model for Hamlet. That right there should tell you most of what you need
to know about Adam and the general tone of the film. Read it how you want
whether it’s vampirism as metaphor for drug addiction (Jarmusch shoots the
blood-drinking sequences like drug trips strangely reminiscent of Trainspotting) or as warning for
environmental destruction and loss of humanity in the world. He’s surely aware
of all these subtexts in his film, but mostly he’s concerned with a certain
aesthetic evidenced by Adam love for great artists of the past. His wall is
dotted with portraits of famous and sometimes brooding writers and musicians.
The clothing he wears is older than just about anyone on the planet. This is a
world where retro and morose are not just fads but a way of life. It’s gorgeous
to look at with its shadowy cinematography and cool to listen to with the
soundtrack provided by Sqürl, Jarmusch’s own rock band. In a way the film
itself is a retro call to Jarmusch’s early filmmaking days, when it was just a
new aesthetic. Those days are long lost, just like the days when Adam and Eve
could drink someone’s blood and dump the body in the Thames.
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