This was one of Jarmusch's early films. It was released in 1981. Right in the crux of political and economic change in the US and the World. I noticed several unique features of the film. There were no CDs or DVDs. In the dance scene at the beginning where is in the apartment with the girl he plays a vinyl record. Things sure have changed. I was also intrigued by his talk of a war with China. It through me for a loop. I thought it might be a reference to Vietnam, but that was totally unfounded. The scenes of the City were great in a dark melancholic sense. All those bombed out houses, I found myself wondering how many landlords burned the buildings for insurance money. The graffitti was a nice touch. Now I think I want to put some graffitti up!
I thought to myself what was the conflict of this film? It's certainly an "art house" film. And it's lack of structure is part of the allure of watching the film. Yet it does have a lot to say about the artist's journey. Or, perhaps, not? Maybe it is a symptom of the post-modern age. A bombed neighborhood, trouble making ends meet, trouble keeping you sanity, and resorting to crime to pay for a passage to France. The film's ending is great. But, I thought, when the main character is slowly floating away, will things be better in France? What will he find there that he doesn't find in New York?
Perhaps the best part of the film is it's cast of characters. I really liked the melancholic, psychosis suffering characters. The mother in the insane asylum with the woman laughing maniacally through the whole visit was so creepy. Then the crazy Latino woman who had on too much lipstick. I didn't know what was wrong with her. Maybe she had been abused? Was she high? We don't get to know. And lastly the black man in the movie theater who seems to ramble on about a suicidal jazz muscian. I thought his anecdote reinforced the theme of the film; how to survive as an artist without conforming to the traditional rules and styles of the past?
The main character seems to be searching for a way to live. Like so many artists his struggle takes him to different places; the Lower East Side in particular, then, ultimately, to France. I thought the best shot of the film was when he wakes up on a flattened cardboard box on the rooftop of a tenement. It showed the young man getting himself together, or suffering from psychosis, against backdrop of the burned out neighborhood with the Empire State building and Chryslet building in the far background. I thought to myself how hierarchical the buildings were and if it was a comment Jarmusch was trying to make about the organization of Capitalist bureauacracy? Or inequality? And the struggle of the artist?
The last scene is also extremely well done. As the main character was floating away towards France, I thought of Catcher in the Rye. Aloyisious seems to be like Houlden Caufield. Fed up with everything and finding no way out. It seems his existence is more like a prison, then a playland.
Excellent film.
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