Review of Stranger Than Paradise (1984) by John H — 06 Jul 2008

Technical dexterity and flawless cinematography in each scene, where everything's measured to perfection and every single frame becomes a surreal photograph of reality. Everything's in its right place. Sounds like a cold, academic, film school movie? Well, it's not. The difference being that Jarmusch talent to shoot everyday life and awkward moments of boredom (with a huge sense of humour, the father of contemporary weird-indie-comedies) falls into the "perfect-technique-with-a-lot-of-heart" category, and that's saying a lot.

I often (if not always) reject "old directors" (let's just say I haven't seen a pre-80s film... for real) because I feel they're so great in technique (cinematography and sense of narrative and framing everything in each scene) that their stories are cold and not close to me. But I always knew Jarmusch was different and this movie proves it over and over again. While he masters everything the Great Directors (you know... those old fellas) had to show his generation, he also masters what He, Mr Jim "White Hair" Jarmusch, has to show to the new generation: how to portray OUR own reality into film.

We don't have to go to a galaxy far, far away or to the Middle Earth or to some weird suburb with kinky housewives and psychopaths with sharp knives chasing hot high school chicks. We just have to look around us and we'll find interesting stories to put on film, and keep on doing our own version of "Stranger than Paradise", which (if you haven't seen the film) you'll soon realize every "indie" movie has being doing that since this came out.

Long live the King!

(Now I have to pay a visit to Grandpa Cassavettes).