• Jarmusch tackles the horror genre or Vampire sub-genre with full confidence in his mood-piece style, formal aesthetic and relaxed approach—much like his take on the thriller genre in The Limits of Control, crime genre in Ghost Dog or western in Dead Man
  • Nocturnal and urban
  • Swinton and Hiddleston are a great pair—both as a couple and as a counter-balance—he’s a moody suicide romantic and she’s a pragmatic optimist – AA Dowd correctly makes the note that they are not far from Wenders (one of Jarmusch’s influences) angels in Wings of Desire
  • Jarmusch’s first digital—the dissolve edits are great
  • Formally impressive- we get the 360-degree aerial shot paired with the vinyl record spinning—it’s a stunning opening and it dissolves and bleeds into the two protagonists. We get this again later with Swinton dancing in circles (making for a great match dissolve with the record) and he’s jamming out on the guitar— yet another later with them both together now in Detroit dancing. Wonderful form
reoccurring overhead shot set up with the vinyl 360 shot opening paired with a bunch of dissolve edits
marvelous form
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three of these sequences
  • The scene of Hiddleston and Anton Yelchin talking guitars is great- it’s like Eric Stoltz and John Travolta talking heroin in Pulp Fiction
  • The gloriously dingy and dilapidated Detroit is one setting (the other is Tangiers at night- both wonderful). We get the Fox Theater, Packard plant, Hiddleston saying the place will rise again
  • Ceremonial reoccurring shot of them drinking
  • Like most of Jarmusch’s works he has his heroes and influences in the text – it’s too fast to see all of the books but we get Infinite Jest, Don Quite, Jack White, Tesla, Buster Keaton, the John Hurt character is the real William Shakespeare—we come close here to feeling like it’s just one big long name drop
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literally a wall of influences for Jarmusch here
  • It’s Jarmusch so it’s largely plotless- we’re just hanging out
  • Perfection in the casting – Swinton in particular is ethereal
  • Hipster cool- PBR—lines like “I’m sure she’ll be famous. I hope not. She’s way too good for that”
  • An incredible shot in the alley at the end in Tangiers with the patterned background
An incredible shot in the alley at the end in Tangiers with the patterned background
  • Highly Recommend