Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Starring Youki Kudoh, Masatoshi Nagase, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Cinque Lee, Nicoletta Braschi, Elizabeth Bracco, Rick Aviles, Joe Strummer and Steve Buscemi
In the summer of 2018, I took a road trip to Memphis. It was a vacation that I had envisioned in my head for years before actually doing it, owing to my huge early rock n' roll fandom and general Elvis Presley obsession. I finally decided to take the plunge for a few different reasons; it took place right after I turned 35, and it actually marked the end of my first blog. I enjoyed everything on the trip, from Graceland to Beale Street, but the thing that I arguably liked the most was sitting in the hotel lobby at night, in a location that seemed far, far away from my small Midwestern hometown watching the traffic go by on the streets below.
This was undoubtedly a very different kind of Memphis than the one depicted in this film. It's also a very different kind of America than the one that usually gets shown in cinema. However, it's different in a wonderful way. I LOVED Mystery Train, one of the early films from director Jim Jarmusch and the first one to be given any kind of significant budget - in this case a little under $3 million, most of which came from JVC electronics. Based on what I saw, I really need to check out more films by Jarmusch, because he shows a level of invention with a still-very-limited budget and an ear for dialogue that I'll never have. It's also an anthology film of sorts, telling three different stories with three different groups of characters that all converge in the end, so keep that in mind as we go about expounding on the story.
The first characters we meet are Jun (Masatoshi Nagase) and his girlfriend Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh), teenage tourists from Japan who are out to see all of the standard sights in Memphis as a title card reading "Far From Yokohama" appears on the screen. A running gag with these characters involves Mitsuko's obsession with Elvis Presley and Jun's insistence that Carl Perkins is the superior performer, an assurance that somehow sneaks up on you at just the right moments. Early on in this film, we gleam just how REAL the interactions between the characters seem, even when the characters themselves are just a little off and unrealistic.
Story #2 is called, fittingly, "A Ghost." Italian widow Luisa (Nicoletta Braschi) is stuck in Memphis overnight while transporting her husband's body back to Rome. She encounters a trio of interesting characters on her night: an unscrupulous magazine salesman, a creepy restaurant patron (played by the always awesome Tom Noonan), and finally down-on-her-luck Deedee (Elizabeth Bracco). There's one particular bit of dialogue between Luisa and Deedee, with the latter going on and on and on about her life situation and how her boyfriend never talks that hits EXACTLY right, followed by a guest appearance from the man who watches over this entire film like the specter that he is.
Everything comes together in the third story, "Lost in Space," featuring Steve Buscemi as a barber who gets sucked in to a violent crime and its awkward aftermath. We also become well-acquainted with Deedee's boyfriend Johnny (Joe Strummer), who goes by the nickname of Elvis much to his own chagrin, and their mutual friend Will Robinson (Rick "The Rat Man" Aviles). One guess as to how this story got its name. While buying a couple bottles of liquor, Johnny does something incredibly stupid that forces the trio to seek shelter at the run-down Arcade hotel and ride out the storm.
Mystery Train has an excellent framing device that never gets old no matter how many times we come back to it. The Arcade hotel is actually where ALL of our groups of characters wind up, with a few events being repeated in every story. There's also some excellent humor provided by the hotel's employees: the very flamboyantly-dressed night clerk portrayed by Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Cinque Lee's suffering bellhop. The fun in a film like this generally comes from piecing together what we're given in each new story and wondering how the characters will eventually converge. This film actually makes a bold leap of NOT having them all meet in a grand chance despite the grand chance of them all showing up at the same hotel on the same night; its finale is satisfying in every way, with the characters remaining separate and facing their own future.
Slight peak behind the curtain: while I watched most of the movies in this marathon in chronological order, I actually skipped ahead and watched this one right after Godzilla to give myself something to look forward to after a film I was dreading. The move paid off, big time, as Mystery Train is a movie that fires on every cylinder. Jarmusch's direction is fantastic, showing a desolate, almost ghost-town version of Memphis that seems to welcome each new inhabitant in with the hospitality of an Old West saloon. The music becomes a character in and of itself, with Elvis' version of "Blue Moon" being one of the repeated motifs that every group of characters encounter on their long night in the city.
A low-budget movie based heavily around dialogue is a dicey proposition for many viewers; it's also a dicey proposition for me, admittedly. But this is a movie that makes you want to keep watching, engaging you with a stable of characters that come across as quirky without ever veering into the pretentious. Hell, EVERY main character in this movie is likable. We leave this movie not knowing where they wind up after leaving Memphis but grateful for the time that we got to spend with them, being allowed a voyeuristic look into their lives. Now who's sounding pretentious?
Rating time: The Memphis Train is rolling...**** out of ****. How much did I enjoy this movie? I ordered the Blu-ray immediately after watching. Now THAT'S a recommendation! Oh, and here's Screamin' Jay doing what he does best.
0 comments:
Post a Comment