Here and There

Saw Broken Flowers finally. A few days earlier, I finally got around to watching Coffee and Cigarettes.

As a career-long Jim Jarmusch fan, I have to say Coffee and Cigarettes didn’t do it for me. But Broken Flowers did, kind of.

First, as many reviews have noted, Coffee and Cigarettes is a movie better viewed for its trees than its forest. It’s a collection of vignettes centered around or having to do with people sitting down drinking coffee, talking, and/or smoking cigarettes. Jarmusch seems to be reminiscing for a time when more of us did that. Your blogger is guilty, to be sure.

So I went into the film with a certain nostalgia-bias.

Still, some of the trees are worth climbing and sitting in, while others are better chopped down and discarded.

The good:

“Somewhere in Californa,” starring Iggy Pop and Tom Waits
“Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil,” starring White Stripes members Meg and Jack White
“Champagne,” starring Taylor Mead and Bill Rice
“Delirium,” starring GZA, RZA, and Bill Murray

Honorable Mention:

“Cousins?” staring Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan

The rest? Eh…

On to Broken Flowers.

This movie is Murray at his tragic/comic best.

Brief capsule (by way of avoiding the spoiler):
Slightly-older-than-middle age man Don Johnston gets dumped, again. Same day, he gets a mysterious letter from a past flame announcing a son he never knew he had. Johnston is lethargic and indifferent (two of Murray’s top acting attributes), but is spurred by his neighbor, the unstoppable, ebullient Winston (Jeffrey Wright), a self-tailored private eye.

The movie unfolds as Johnston searches for the author of the letter, taking him to the homes and workplaces of girlfriends from 20 years prior.

The most memorable of the exes is actually Laura, played by Sharon Stone. Maybe it was the primacy effect, or maybe it was her teenage daughter’s naked ass parading around the living room.

Of course it was Murray who stole the show, although Wright’s Winston cast a pretty large shadow in scenes shared by the two actors.

Overall, Broken Flowers, true to the Jarmusch mold of uncomfortable, realistic silence and inertia, did a good job of tracing one man’s tragic past in a comedic light. Not a bad movie…

Oh, and the soundtrack is excellent, featuring several tracks from Mulatu Astatqe and their album Éthiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale (1969-1974).

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