In a wonderfully striking image (first image) and opening sequence (with some great dissolves) Jarmusch gives us an Adam and Eve who are lovers of knowledge and art. In the second image, Adam creates a wall of important artists and thinkers, further reinforcing this motif in the film. But what’s the deeper point of this signifier in the film? (For more see below)
In another sublime sequence of shots, Jarmusch gives us his often focused on motif of loss. Placed in the specific context of this film, the still striking remnant of the once magisterial Michigan Theater speaks to a past that is now lost. The parking lot, then, symbolizes a banal, ordinary, emptied-of-meaning present. The question, though, is what has been lost? Beauty? An appreciation for art? Heterogeneity? (Replaced with corporate homogeneity?) A more enlightened (e.g., scientific) sensibility? I think the film at least touches on all of the above though only sketchily, vaguely, not concretely. (For more, see below) My sense is that this lost past also speaks to just a lost way of being, e.g., coupled with other symptomatic signifying images (abandoned buildings and homes), Detroit has come to be the poster child for deindustrialization and the extreme loss of livelihoods that came with this seismic shift in being.
While screening the most important films of 2014 (see Favorite Films: 2014), I re-screened the Jim Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive. I screened the film when it first came out and while I was just okay with it then, Jarmusch is one of my favorite filmmakers, so I thought I would give it another chance. On a second viewing, I liked it more, but I am still not overly enthused with it. That is, the film seems deep and yet none of its deep elements seem to add up to anything, not for me at least. First, let me convey what I really like about the film: At least in aesthetic terms, Jarmusch is at his very best, offering up some of his most incredible compositions, mise en scenes (everything in the frame), and dissolves. Most pointedly, the film just drips with atmosphere, especially in terms of emphasizing this dark world that we have entered into, dark, though, not because our characters are vampires but, ironically, because of the human world these vampires inhabit. This darkness is especially marked in Detroit, Adam’s home lair, Jarmusch again (he does this in many of his films) giving us a desolate, dystopian landscape, ravaged though ravaged by…what? I’ll come back to that in a moment. Studying the film for deeper elements, I’ve come to the conclusion that Jarmusch is doing something I really like in science fiction films, sci-fi films that give us advanced, more evolved aliens who force us to see ourselves through their evolved lens, to see just how primitive we are and what we need to do to evolve (progress) ourselves to a higher state of being (think The Day the Earth Stood Still [1951, Robert Wise]). In this case, instead of aliens, we get evolved vampires, which makes so much sense, assuming we do not confuse the issue with souls and such. If vampires live for hundreds (in the case of Adam) or even thousands (apparently in the case of Eve), then assuming that they aren’t entirely sociopathic, they would eventually evolve themselves to a higher state of being, which does seem to be the case with Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), the names they have chosen then making sense, since they would seem to be where we the spectator can begin again, to let them direct us to a better, more evolved way of being. The question, though, is what exactly that is? Getting back to what I touch on above — how Jarmusch stresses the dystopian landscape of Detroit (and to a lesser degree Tangier, e.g., figures selling either drugs or prostitutes to Eve and Adam) — Jarmusch doesn’t really give us what exactly is wrong with humanity. He gives us lots of symptoms — an abandoned city, emptied of meaning people, hints of global warming, etc. — but he never pinpoints any root causes to these symptoms of humanity’s lack of humanity, presumably why Adam and Eve call humans “zombies.” (Well, actually, they may call them “zombies” just because of their lack of appreciation for the great minds of the world, whether that be in terms of art or science.) And as figures who are supposed to be more evolved, Jarmusch seems to be satisfied with evolution of self being equated to art appreciation, creativity and knowledge pursuits, which is a great start but only in so far as these meaning and purpose pursuits give meaning and purpose to Adam and Eve, which is also only sketchily drawn out, since Adam’s deeply cynical and bitter and pessimistic self can’t really gain much in the way of solace from these otherwise life affirming pursuits. In other words, here again, to what end do these meaningful and purposeful pursuits take these characters and more importantly this film? Neither Adam or Eve really do anything with their evolved sensibilities except self-absorbedly indulge their passions. If they are truly evolved beings, wouldn’t they actually give us a life affirming and life progressing and life evolving model to follow, not to mention actually benefiting humanity in some way or another? Now, that would have made for an interesting and radical vampire film! And then what to make of the ending??? Again, Jarmusch seems to go well out of his way to make Eve and Adam more evolved, only to reduce them — or de-evolve them — back to a predatory state of being, which means what, that when it comes to survival they — or none of us — really can evolve to a higher state of being? Of course, Adam insists that they don’t “kill” the young man and woman they have spotted but “turn them” suggesting that perhaps what they do — out of survival — isn’t such a bad thing. But the lasting image of them barring their fangs in a typical vampiric way just seems to jettison all that the film had accomplished, to make these vampires different, evolved.
(Here again, I would love to hear if anyone read this film in a way that gives it the depth that I am suggesting it lacks! I really do want to love this film as much as I love the rest of Jarmusch’s films, well, except The Limits of Control, another Jarmusch film that I didn’t get!)