Jim Jarmusch
Stranger than Paradise

THE REVIEW

After Permanent Vacation dated 1980, shot as a thesis project for the Graduate Film School of New York, Jim Jarmusch creates this Stranger than Paradise in 1984; his second work. The film can be considered as a sort of international consecration for the director, allowing him to transcend the borders of the U.S.A, winning the Caméra d'Or, the award for the best debut film at the Cannes Film Festival of the same year.

But let's talk about the film, a piece of realism, a journey into a poor world made of improvisation, realized in three acts that group together three stories bound by the same characters: the first "The New World" shot in New York tells the story of a gambler, Willie (John Lurie, a constant presence in the director's early films and creator of the music) devoted to a life of tricks who sees the entry into his life of a cousin, Eva (wonderfully played by Ezster Balint) from Hungary who, ten days after her arrival, has to leave for Cleveland. This first act is monotone, anxious, fed by the confinement of Willie's apartment.

The second act, "One Year Later" opens with Willie and his friend Eddie (Richard Edson) intent on swindling three men at poker. With their earnings, also a result of horse race bets, Willie decides to head to Cleveland to visit his cousin. Arriving there with his friend, they have a vacation. The backdrop of this second act is less claustrophobic, Willie has changed character-wise, perhaps after the visit from his cousin a year earlier, on whom he expresses an almost obsessive attraction, set between his aunt's house and the snowy streets of Cleveland, amid cinemas and fast-foods, between railway tracks and Lake Erie.

After a few days, they decide to leave again, and the third act "Paradise" opens where the two on their way back to New York decide to turn back, take the cousin and head to Florida for a vacation. This third act is disenchanted, the dream of Eva and her two travel companions shatters against the harsh reality of things; Willie and Eddie rediscover themselves as gamblers and swindlers, Eva finds herself in solitude, despite knowing there is a bond between her and her cousin. The film’s ending reshuffles everything and separates the three characters.

A glimpse of grim lived life, made of expedients in the case of Willie and his friend, of traditionalism (see the Hungarian aunt but also Willie himself), of desire and escape. The film is sharp, claustrophobic, blunt, expressive; it almost seems as if the settings come to life from the characters' state of mind. The extraordinary cinematography by Tom Dicillo is striking (later also directing with Johnny Suede), who had already collaborated with Jarmusch on Permanent Vacation and would also handle the photography for Coffee and Cigarettes in 2003.

Film recommended for its artistic quality, a little gem that shines with its own light and encompasses a touch of what will also be the poetics of this wonderful American director in his subsequent films.