Review: In ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’, Time Waits for No Vampire
Jim Jarmusch’s hang-out drama is full of tragic beauty
The films of Jim Jarmusch have enchanted me for years now. The memory of coming across Down By Law, maybe still the best of Jarmusch’s films, some years ago still rings around my head from time to time. Few films have given me such a feeling. It felt so raw and so truthful, beautiful in its human comedy.
Only Lovers Left Alive was one of the Jarmusch films I was hesitant to get around to. Jarmusch’s other film involving non-humans, The Dead Don’t Die, is his one truly poor work. Thankfully, Only Lovers Left Alive is far better than Jarmusch’s trudging zombie comedy, even if the two films do share many of their flaws.
The main flaw, impacting both films, is its smugness. Jarmusch communicates a very reactionary stance towards culture, sticking with the sounds of the 40s through to the 1970s in his soundtracks (which is totally fine in and of itself) while very clearly suggesting that contemporary culture is ‘dead’, as it were. His clumsy use of the iconography of the zombie to represent modern art fans is not only offensive but also ignorant. It suggests an ego that is, frankly, eye-rolling. When this egotism rears its head, largely through the character of Adam (Tom Hiddleston) in Only Lovers Left…
