Only Lovers Left Alive [2013]
An analogue couple in a digital world.
Just when vampires' reputation as a film subject was on the verge of extinction, director Jim Jarmusch brought his interpretation of ancient love to life in Only Lovers Left Alive. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton restored faith in tragic love, vampires, and beauty.
The lovers in the story, Adam and Eve, are outsiders. They look at the world through their tinted glasses, living by night. They are
an analogue couple in a digital world. Synclastic Adam is an underground musician who is disillusioned with people. He calls them zombies. Adam lives in Detroit, which after its heyday has become a ghost town. The walls of Adam's apartment are covered with pictures of famous people, he has lived with Shelley and Tesla. Yet he insists he has no heroes. The suicidal vampire's touch with the modern world is thin. The music is played on vinyl, but the man knows where Jack White's childhood home is. Adam wears a 100-year-old velvet bathrobe and talks only to a young boy played by Anton Yelchin. "For a zombie, you're okay." That's as polite as Adam gets. As a character, Adam is a decadent, romantic, sarcastic rocker, a deep thinker who is hard not to fall for.
Eve dresses in silk kimonos and full white dresses. Eve arrives at Adam's house from Tangier, where she has been spending time with her friend Marlowe (John Hurt). Adam needs rescue, his wife, is the only one who understands what it's like to live for hundreds of years. Eve is light whereas Adam is night. The whip-smart, tall and pale characters are strikingly beautiful. The characters' hair is made of human hair, yak and goat hair. Jarmusch wanted the characters to exude natural, animal and wild beauty. More elegant and hip than any human being desperate to keep up with modern trends. Eve and Adam are the last true lovers. If you live forever, what does it do to love? Commitment?
Jarmusch moves the story along slowly. What does time matter to a vampire?
That's why it's ingenious. The pace and atmosphere of the film immerse the viewer, pulling them under the surface and not letting go. A poetic, quiet couple drink their blood from goblets. When Eve's sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) arrives in the village, the balance is upset. Ava talks about people drinking. "It's so 1400s," says Eve. Adam and Eve are poets, artists, and works of art of life. Adam plays guitar, lute, violin, and drums - music is the film's flowing core. It links Detroit and Tangiers through its themes and performers - some of the songs are co-produced by Jarmusch and Dutch composer Jozef van Wissem. The songs combine lute, and electric guitar, and create a dreamlike atmosphere of deserted streets. At times it feels like Adam is the alter ego of director Jarmusch. Indeed, Hiddleston spent time at the director's home learning to play all the instruments seen in the film; probably adopting Jarmusch's mannerisms along the way.
The story is surprisingly light. Its humour is dark and witty, its clues hidden in walls, looks and music. As Adam retrieves his blood bag from the hospital, the audience is left laughing. It aptly sums up the tragedy and humour of the strange characters - it's not a darkening story. Only Lovers Left Alive restores faith in vampires, and allows you to love them without holding back. Personally, for me, it is the best film of 2013.