New Jim Jarmusch movie: Only Lovers Left Alive

Cafe Society
1

Jarmusch tackles a genre that he’s never touched before (perhaps some would say that Jarmusch has put genre characters into a Jarmusch movie). I’d say that Only Lovers Left Alive does for this genre what Dead Man did for Westerns- and I loved it.

O.K., here’s the thing: I was completely out of the loop that there was a new Jarmusch movie at all. I was scrolling through Moviefone on my phone, the title seemed interesting, so I clicked and saw that it was Jim Jarmusch so I immediately decided to see it without reading anything at all.

If you read anything at all about it, the genre will be mentioned in the first or second sentence. So, I feel like I’ll come off as ridiculous if I ask that this Thread treat the genre itself as a Spoiler.

I’ll just say that not knowing the genre when I went in really made the slow reveal pretty cool considering I’d would never have expected it from Jim Jarmusch. So, if you’ve read nothing about the movie, and if you are already a Jim Jarmusch fan, you may enjoy going in to see the movie without reading anything at all about it.

I can say this much: Jim Jarmusch + Tom Hiddleston + Tilda Swinton = AWESOME.
The two leads are wonderful, completely understand what the director needs from them, give beautiful perfect performances. Visually, the movie is a delight to the eyes. Probably Jarmusch’s most visual film ever. The music is wonderful, almost counting as a character interacting with the other characters.

It’s got 85% from critics and 80% from audiences on Rotten Tomatos- which tells me that only Jarmusch fans have seen it so far, I can’t imagine it being very well liked by anyone who isn’t a fan. Ha!

Really loved it. A beautiful film going experience.

P.S., interesting that imdb lists it as a 2013 film. Not sure what the story is on that.

2

Yes, it’s my favorite movie of the year so far, and it has a LOT of competition! I knew vaguely what it was about but I agree that it would have been even cooler if I had gone in without knowing.

3

Ha! I knew that if only one person responded to the thread . . . gee, who would it be, who would it be?

I’m glad you enjoyed it!

4

Ha, don’t get cocky. There a lot of threads about movies I liked, even loved, that I never post in.

I want the soundtrack. I went on a Yasmine Hamdan binge after seeing the movie. Having her in that haunting scene, having Adam be entranced, having Eve enjoy it but mainly enjoying Adam’s enjoyment, was so perfect. It’s the kind of scene that adds nothing to the plot, and would probably have ended up on the Deleted Scenes portion of a big budget movie’s DVD. Forget people who might say the movie is slow and nothing much happens. This kind of scene happens!

5

It appeared at Cannes and a boatload of other film festivals in 2013. As for why it took so long to come out, Sony Pictures Classics picks up a lot of film festival pictures, but doesn’t always seem to know what to do with them.

6

I saw it last winter when it was released here and loved it.

Yes!
While watching it I had this thought: If you froze the screen at any random moment of the film, that image could very well stand as an artistic photograph in itself.