Review of Mystery Train (1989) by Aldo M — 19 Mar 2015

First note: if I were from Memphis, I would be somewhat offended by this movie. I have been in the city, I remember it beautiful, I do not remember such a junkyard. But I was very badly offended by the portrait of Rome Jarmusch made in Night on Earth, he is such a man, rude, offensive, unpolite, unpleasant (I have seen some interview to him, a really unpleasant person, for me): he is so, a kind of man I would not like to have within my friends, for sure.

Jim Jarmusch insists in showing an America made of rotten buildings, junkyards, rusty cars ... I wonder: if he see his own country this way, why does he not leave it? The world is so great and full of beautiful places (not Rome, of course, a city that, accordin to Jarmusch, is as rotten and dirty and abandoned as Detroit nowadays, plus where peole have sex with pumpkins, sheep, and on the public street).

That said, I have seen this from a streaming with no subtitles at all: including the Japanese and the (short) Italian dialogs (not a problem for me for Italian, but with Japanese I had some ...): I wonder if it is so in the original, or, for some reason, the subtitles were left out in my copy. Anyhow, it was not difficult to follow the story of the japanese couple, even without understanding one word.

Overall, this is not the best Jarmusch I have seen, and I have seen almost everything. It is not also the worst, not as bad as the last production - the worst being, to my opinion, Only Lovers Left Alive, not counting the hideous Night on Earth - but far, very far, from Down By Law or Dead Man.

There is some funny spot, here and there, but Jarmusch jokes sounds, always, as already heard, old, stale; but I see some critics consider him exilarant: maybe my sense of humor is too poor to resonate with his. Or, more simply, my sense of humor is far from the tipical American one (this is a very well known thing since long: great American comedians never appealed any Italian audience, just to name the first coming to mind, Jerry Lewis, Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers).

The music is great, here, from the very beginning. Elvis is quoted all the time, but the opening song, Mystery Train, giving the title to the movie, reminds me Bill Monroe. It was not a song of him, but could have been. The ghost I perceived here was Bill, not Elvis: and this is the reason why I score this movie 3 stars: without this feeling, it were probably one and half, in the best case.

Overall, something to see if you have nothing better to do, but just once in life.