Year 12, Day 296 - 10/22/20 - Movie #3,681
BEFORE: I don't pay too much attention to the director of each film as I make my linking plans - sometimes I'm aware who directed a film, of course, but most often I'm not. It's accidental today that I got two Jim Jarmusch films next to each other, but of course that could also be a direct by-product of linking by actor, as some directors tend to work with the same actors again and again. Why not? If they had a positive experience working with someone, or are more tuned in to what they can do, it just make sense to keep that connection and try to repeat a success.
But if, like me, you were saying yesterday, "Jim Jarmusch made a zombie movie?", tonight you'll be asking "Jim Jarmusch made a vampire movie?" Yes, he did.
Tilda Swinton carries over from "The Dead Don't Die".
THE PLOT: A depressed musician reunites with his lover, though their romance, which has already endured several centuries, is disrupted by the arrival of her uncontrollable younger sister.
AFTER: Again, as with yesterday's zombie film, it feels like somebody sat down and really thought about vampires - what are the implications of living for hundreds of years, and being a vampire all that time? What does that DO to a person, or two people as a couple? These two vampires have lived their lives, interacted with many prominent people in history, and on a personal level it seems like they've broken up and come back together many times. There's a reference to their third wedding in 1868 - and when we first meet them, he's living outside of Detroit, and she's in Tangier. Perhaps they determined that they can't live together, but they also can't live without each other, so they'll spend years at a time on their own. What are a few years to a vampire, after all? He gets to live like a recluse and record music (vampires also have a lot of time to master musical instruments) and she gets to explore the Middle East and hang out with Christopher Marlowe - yes that Marlowe, and there's an implication here that he wrote under the name of Shakespeare, I think.
The similarity to "Twilight" here, and really there's only one, is that these vampires are trying their very best to NOT drink the blood of humans, at least not directly. The Cullens in "Twilight" preferred to hunt animals for blood, but that really sent a mixed message where animal rights were concerned. Remember how Bella was a vegetarian at the start of that series? Tonight's modernist vamps have worked out other solutions, they've had enough time and resources to work out better solutions, namely bribing doctors at hospitals to keep them supplied with "the good stuff", aka non-contaminated O negative. All this time, and nobody's really thought about what effect the AIDS epidemic had on the vampire community, not until this came out (2013).
A little more thought applied to the concept of modern-day vampires, and a writer might realize that staying under the radar would be the best thing to do, because too many killings in a particular area would draw attention, and modern forensic techniques would then force that vampire to find a new hunting ground (OK, so that's two plot points this film shares with the "Twilight" movies.). Adam, or the vampire who has chosen to call himself Adam, has chosen to live in Detroit for a reason, because the city is bankrupt and the downtown area is nearly abandoned, and except for a couple of underground rock fans who occasionally follow up on a rumor and ring his doorbell, he's left fairly alone, and only comes out at night to drive aimlessly around the city. It's the true Goth lifestyle, which seems appropriate - with the teens today wearing black, looking all pale and only going out to clubs at night, it seems Adam was a trend-setter, or perhaps just ahead of his time.
But Eve soon re-enters his life, after having a prophetic dream about her sister. Another thing that you'd only realize about vampires after careful thought would be, how the hell do they get around? Without a Renfield-like assistant to arrange transportation of their coffin on a New-York based freighter, instead they have to book a ticket on a plane that only travels by night, and it has to be night in the city they leave from and also in the city they arrive in. That's contrary to the way most people (people are called "zombies" by the vampires here) live their lives, most people would book an early morning flight just to avoid it being too late when they arrive at their destination. Still, I know a couple people who might prefer the "red-eye" just because they're so comfortable sleeping on a plane. I would further imagine that a vampire could then only fly on a plane headed west, in order to remain in darkness and avoid the possibility of flying into the rising sun. See how thought-provoking this is?
Sure enough, Eve's sister Ava turns up - she'd been hanging out in L.A. with the Goth kids there, and must have caught a night flight to Detroit. She gets some of the "good stuff" from Adam and Eve, and they all go out to a show with Ian, Adam's friend and "fixer", who supplies him with vintage guitars and for some reason, a bullet made of wood. Adam asked for this when he knew Eve was headed his way, but it's a bit unclear whether he needed this bullet for protection, or just to kill his long-time wife, or maybe he thought that getting back together with her would drive him to suicide. Either way, it doesn't really matter, just another thing to discuss in a film that's got much more discussion over what it means to be a vampire than it has vampires feasting on their prey. Again, it's more of a think-piece and a relationship film than an action-based affair.
Long story short, the couple is forced to leave Detroit and Adam has to sacrifice his large guitar collection (Can't he just pay someone to pack up his house and forward the collection somewhere? Can't he just open up a storage unit somewhere? Or does that require a credit card or a bank account, which means a paper-trail? See, more things to think about!). The couple flies to Tangier on another night flight and arrive drained, and when they track down vampire Christopher Marlowe, who was supposed to meet them, they realize he's on the way out, he also ran out of the "good stuff" and must have got a bad batch somehow. I kind of feel like John Hurt got typecast as "the dying guy" for maybe 10 years in movies before he died for real.
So the couple is forced to return, for a short time at least, to their savage ways - so they settle on a young Moroccan couple, figuring that the most romantic thing they can do is to turn young lovers into vampires, so their relationship will also endure forever. (OK, that's THREE plot points shared with "Twilight"...)
Also starring Tom Hiddleston (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Mia Wasikowska (last seen in "Defiance"), Anton Yelchin (last seen in "House of D"), Jeffrey Wright (last seen in "The Laundromat"), Slimane Dazi, John Hurt (last seen in "Dogville"), Yasmine Hamdan, Carter Logan.
RATING: 5 out of 10 autographed novels in a suitcase
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