Written, produced and directed by Jim
Jarmusch. Cast: Winona Ryder, Gena Rowlands, Giancarlo Esposito, Armin
Mueller-Stahl, Rosie Perez, Isaach De Bankol¨¦, B¨¦atrice Dalle, Roberto
Benigni, Paolo Bonacelli, Matti Pellonpaa.
Photography, Frederick Elmes. Music, Tom Waits. A Fine Line release. 128 min.
Rated R (language).
A globe approached from space, a raspy song, clocks with the time in five
big cities. It is Night on Earth-- very late night, when streets and people can
be at their loneliest.
Maverick filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, a cool, tongue-in-cheek observer and
low-budget minimalist, has made a film of five sketches or slices of life, five
cab rides at the same hour in five different cities, each trip having a special
contact between drivers and riders, reinforced by deep night.
For many independents, poverty is an asset. When they attain bankable status
and bigger means, they often lose their purity -- and disappoint us. Will
success spoil Jim Jarmusch?
For this film he worked with a high (for him) budget, color, and some name
stars. He took the risk of a multi-episode formula, one than fails more often
than not. The good news is that Jarmusch has come up with a wonderfully fresh,
offbeat, and original movie, the most delightful of the season.
We get a mordant view of Los Angeles as casting agent Gena Rowlands, all chic
and frantic calls on her cellular phone, becomes the fare of scruffy cabby
Winona Ryder who can chew gum maniacally, chain-smoke and drive at the same time
-- something not given to everyone, including famous public figures.
Ryder and rider are respectively and gloriously low-class and showbiz.
Nothing much happens. The two chat across their social and generational
differences. Gena offers Winona a movie part, but fame and fortune are turned
down. What Winona wants is to be a mechanic. An improbable refusal but
emblematic of Jarmusch¹s anti-Hollywood-Establishment stance.
In New York, agitated Giancarlo Esposito is ignored by taxis. Partly because
he¹s black? Maybe, but Jarmusch won¹t fall into obvious political correctness.
Instead, another minority member picks up Esposito. Armin Mueller-Stahl, fresh
from Eastern Germany, formerly a circus clown, now starting out a colossally
inept cabbie who can understand neither New York traffic nor Newyorkese
Verissimilitude goes out the window, but Armin, the innocent immigrant, is
appealing in his natural simplicity. With much cleverness, Jarmusch makes of him
something like fawn in the jungle, but one not quite aware that it is a jungle.
Esposito takes the wheel. Both men are baffled and amused by each other, by
German accents, Black English vocabulary and names. Helmut sounds like ³helmet²
to the mirth of Giancarlo... who is called Yo-Yo.
Yo-Yo has never heard of Dresden or Czechoslovakia; Helmut is confounded by
New York¹s topography. They¹re even. They like each other. And when Yo-Yo picks
up his errant, foul-mouthed, cute sister-in-law Rosie Perez, Helmut is enchanted
by her. Between him and the street-smart Yo-Yo there is fleeting sympathy.
Jarmusch¹s habitual irony is still there all right, but, contrary to the opening
images, without the aloofness of an alien watching earthlings. And the octane of
warmth has been upgraded, but without reaching the level of sentimentality.
The next sections are in local languages and with subtitles. In Paris, an
Ivory Coast native, taciturn Isaach De Bankol¨¦, drives two black Cameroonian
businessmen, nattily suited and high on champagne.. They mock, taunt, call him
"Ivoirien" ("Ivory Coaster") and "Y voit rien" ("He sees nothing"), an
untranslatable French pun. There¹s discrimination among Africans too--but that¹s
just a passing point.
Isaach kicks them out, picks up new fare Beatrice Dalle. She is white,
pretty, and blind. Jarmusch de-romanticizes her by showing the white of her eyes
and giving her an attitude. Isaach is fascinated, asks questions and gets nasty,
agressive-defensive responses. You half-expect a romance, but wait and see.
In Rome, hyper Roberto Benigni drives like Fangio but ignores one-way
streets. He is a compulsive chatterbox, even with his radio dispatcher and--like
a Godard character--even to himself. Picking up a priest, he inflicts on the
unwilling old man an impromptu, detailed, scabrous confession of sexual
experiences, taking a break to say hello to friends, transvestite hookers.
Benigni, his monologues and the gags reach such a delirious level that there is
more laughter in a few minutes than in an entire, solid comedy feature. At the
end comes a dark twist -- but look closely, it may not be all that dark.
The film's finish is Finnish. In drab, empty, snow-covered Helsinki, cabby
Matti Pellonpaa loads up a loaded trio who tell a sad tale. Matti counters with
a sadder story yet, which becomes a consolation of sorts for the others. You may
be expecting a gimmick, but the catch is that there is no catch.
This is the only dispiriting episode. You may wonder why the filmmaker closes
his picture with it, but then Jarmusch takes his uncompromising unorthodoxy all
the way. If Hollywoodized, driver Ryder would have been turned into a Lana
Turner type of discovery, the German and the two Brooklynites would have become
friends, Isaach and Beatrice, lovers, and a catch would make for an upbeat
finis. But not with J.J.
Jarmusch is clever and subtle. The cabs, in a technical tour-de-force, are
real, alive and a far cry from the old rear-projection techniques or even newer,
more sophisticated special effects. The social promiscuity in their space is
taken to the max.
The supercharged vignettes unfailingly takes little turns that shift away
from conformism and expand the meaning of minimalism. You know that each episode
is just one-fifth of the whole, so the intimacy, closeness and over-acting are
not heavily thrust upon the audience.
Jarmusch is true to himself, to his concerns with solitude, anomie,
connections and disconnections. He brings out the bizarreness within the
commonplace, aspects that are as true as is the haphazardness of real
life. But this film is also all-new. Jim does not ape Jarmusch.
His performers are razor-sharp. So are the ways in which Jarmusch captures
the look, essence and mood of his five cities after hours. With the help of his
cinematographer (who has worked with David Lynch) and others --including Tom
Waits whose wonderful, gravely song connects all the sections.
Jarmusch, the fellow from Akron, Ohio, has made genuine Los Angeles and New
York movies, and authentically French, Italian and Finnish films.
¡¡From Movie Reviews by
Edwin Jahiel
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