Suckers for love
A OU’ E GOT THESE T O MODERN DA AMSIRES, UT THE DON’T GOIMMER EACH OTHER OR EAR HAIR SRODUCT OR HANG OUT ITH EEFCA E ERE OO ES HE SIT AROUND AND SOA CHESS MOSTO , OR DRIN OOOD FROM SHERR GOASSES OR DISCUSS OMANTIC SOETR NE OF THEM’S A GUITAR AfiCIONADO, SO HE SITS AROUND IN HIS ATHRO E AND SOUGS IN INTAGE RETSCHES AND ES AUOS AND STO ES US DIRGE OI E MAEOSTROMS OF GUITAR NOISE IN HIS SSARE TIME OF HICH HE HAS AN ENDOESS SUSSO THE OTHER HAS EIRD, IR HAIR AND HANGS OUT IN ANGIER ITH
hristopher 0arlowe (who, it turns out, is also a vampire and wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays).
These vampires are hipsters, more or less, but they’re miles away from the teen vamps of LOL or the white trash undead of O .
layed by Tom iddleston and Tilda Swinton in Jim Jarmusch’s O OL , Adam and (ve are cooler-thanthou vampires, proving there’s still some, er, blood left in the genre, though perhaps lacking a few platelets.
Jarmusch struggled to fund his million vampire movie for years, and now it’s out, though don’t expect it to pass by local cinemas anytime soon. ,t’s an arty little film, with quiet, typical Jarmusch touches that show whatever genre he takes on bears his imprint. The opening shot sets the tone a crackly rpm single begins revolving on a turntable, emitting some 9elvet 8nderground dirge played by Sqürl (Jarmusch’s band); it fades into a spinning overhead camera shot of Adam, (ve and 0arlowe, blissfully nodding out from their nightly blood intake.
iddleston and Swinton are centuries-old married vamps, living across the globe from one another — she in 0orocco and he in rundown Detroit, though their separation is never adequately explained — when Adam’s bummed-out mood (he’s contemplating firing a wooden bullet at himself) draws them together once again.
:hereas the vampires in LOL were young and cocky, yet possessed no actual wisdom about the world, the couple in O OL are older and wiser; they live in curated digs with turntables and vinyl everywhere, not to mention guitars strewn about on century-old furniture and a “hipster” wall of fame — framed portraits of everyone from (dgar Allen oe and illy olliday to Thelonious 0onk and Neil Young. Adam in particular fancies old things old stethoscopes, old cordless phones, old tube amps.
(ve, too, is into retro. :hen she travels across the world to be with Adam, she doesn’t pack an i ad — she brings suitcases full of actual books to read, mostly Romantic poetry. She books red-eye flights to Detroit to avoid sunlight. And she things she can tell an obMect’s age Must by touching it, and she recites the /atin name of every plant and mushroom growing in Adam’s weedy backyard. The world’s collective knowledge is
The vampires in ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ are seasoned hipsters, living in curated digs with turntables and guitars strewn about and framed portraits of life pegs on the wall — everyone
from Edgar Allen Poe to Neil Young.
part of these vamps’ basic makeup, something the “zombies” of the world — humans — seem uninterested in exploring. Adam, meanwhile, is a disciple of science — Nikola Tesla, in particular, who taught him how to rewire his home to receive energy straight from the universe; Adam has also taught everybody from Samuel arber to Stravinsky a thing or two about music. e’s apt to sit around strumming doom chords in his goth attire, recording it onto reel-to-reel analog tape. ne wonders how Adam and (ve manage to come by their endless supply of money, since they’re not the blood-sucking robbing type rather, they get their blood from hospital blood labs, forking over handfuls of cash on a regular basis to a snarky Jeffrey :right. ut they seem to know all the angles.
The conceit here is that Tilda and Tom are carry-overs from the Romantic era, the early to mid- s that bore Shelley and yron and .eats and oleridge. They’re a little anachronistic, wearing their evening gloves and reciting poetry by candlelight. ut that’s what makes them cool. They still believe in “love that crosses oceans of time.” They’re the last true romantics, enMoying the good things the world has to offer, and shaking their heads ruefully at the way “zombies” have fracked things up on earth.
They’re, in fact, the “creatives” behind every great moment in human artistic achievement, in Jarmusch’s conception. They don’t brag about it though, because, well, they value their privacy. That privacy is threatened when (ve’s sister, (va (0ia :asikowska), shows up from /.A. and wants to crash with them for a while. You know she’s trouble when she wants to know where Adam stashes his blood supply.
The “zombies” in their midst, like Adam’s Renfield-like assistant ,an (played by Anton Yelchin), are in thrall of vampire hipsterism, even shyly donning sunglasses in a nightclub to look as cool as Adam and (ve. ut ,an ends up drained of Type by (ve’s millennial sister. “You drank ,an ” Adam gasps when he discovers his lifeless assistant lying on a couch under (va’s satiated fangs.
Sadly, the movie ends up being almost as anemic as ,an’s drained corpse, or iddleston’s attempt at Romantic-poet pallor. Not much happens; like a lot of Jarmusch films, this is an exercise in style and minimal cool over plot and substance. To be fair, that’s long been Jarmusch’s approach, from the rockabilly vignettes of DL to the :estern psychedelia of D
D Deadpan humor goes a long way in his films, but in this one, even the deadpan humor is a bit lifeless.
A shame, because hipsters and art film fans have been waiting a long time for this New York indie filmmaker to finish his take on vampirism. They will perhaps have to content themselves with the little things the doomy, seductive music; yet another intriguing turn by Tilda Swinton; John urt’s dessicated hris 0arlowe; and iddleston’s increasingly put-upon rock god. A vampire film about eternal youth that dwells on growing old :hat else do you expect from the white-haired master of downtown minimalism