The Real American Dream (Stranger Than Paradise (DVD))

Member Name: edie

Product:	Stranger Than Paradise (DVD)
Date:	30/01/01 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A true original

Disadvantages: Not the most exciting movie for some

I know it’s a cliché but Stranger Than Paradise really seems to be one of those movies that people either love or hate. And I know a lot who can’t stand it, hating its empty, vacant dialogue, D.O.A story-line or simply can’t get used to a movie without the usual Hollywood trappings of sex, violence and explosions. And certainly this isn’t one to watch after a wild, boozy party. This is a film primarily about silence and in its own quiet way it's totally audacious. I can’t think of any other film that would dare to point a camera at characters for minutes while they just drink beer and stare at the floor.

Jim Jarmusch’s first film proper came out of the New York DIY film scene in the early 80s and the obvious effects of budget limitations (the static camera, limited locations, tinny sound recording) occasionally make it look like a student effort. But one thing that distinguishes it above amateur level is the quality of the acting. The cast are all non-actors but Jarmusch manages to get wonderful naturalistic performances out of them. They maybe basically playing themselves but that makes them absolutely perfect for these roles. While, for any budding film-makers, this is a brilliant example of how to make a movie from so little.

The plot as it is, is divided into 3 formal parts. Eva (Esther Balint), a teenage Hungarian girl emigrates to New York and stays with her thoroughly Americanised cousin Willie (John Lurie), who makes it obvious how unwelcome she is, before departing for their aged Aunt Lotte in Cleveland. A year later Willie, who finds himself missing Eva, and his amiable friend Eddie (Richard Edson), follow her to Cleveland. In the third part this odd trio go on a impromptu road trip to Florida (the paradise of the title) but their dreams of "Cape Canaveral, Miami beach, girls in bikinis, pelicans and flamingos" don’t turn out exactly as they planned.

Perhaps it’s
the culture clash between Hungary and the USA that forms the basis of the movie, but Stranger Than Paradise often seems more European than American in orientation. Jarmusch was a sometime protégé of German director Wim Wenders and it shows. In fact STP was finished with left-over film stock from Wenders’s the State Of Things, though it reminds me more of another of his movies Alice in the Cities, another low-budget B+W movie about drifting, disaffected life in the USA.

A lot is made by critics of Jim Jarmusch’s hipster pretensions and while Stranger Than Paradise certainly has an appealing dead-pan cool, they never seem to notice the sadness at the heart of this movie. Even in its funniest moments, its melancholy, wintry atmosphere is so tangible. These young people are stymied into unbelievably small, constricted lives, watching TV in Willie’s barren, cell-like apartment; their idea of a great day is a win at the races. Eva comes to America expecting something different and exciting, as symbolised by tape of I Put a Spell on You that she constantly listens to, but she probably finds it’s worse than Hungary.

Stranger Than Paradise seems to be the polar opposite of brash big-budget Hollywood movies. The likes of Gone in 60 Seconds, I enjoyed while watching but I could hardly remember a thing about 5 minutes later. With Stranger Than Paradise, which originally seems to be about nothing at all, my initial reaction was: Is that it? But a few days afterwards I found myself thinking about the events in this movie and I still think about it years later. While its ironic, enigmatic ending makes you wonder just what it’s all about. It might be a romance, except no one seems especially interested in any one else, it might be about the importance of family or alternatively about making your own way in the world, it definitely seems to have something to say about communication (or the lack of), and it might be about the limita
tions of American Dream. Then again it might as easily be about none of the above.

Summary: