Only Lovers Left Alive

Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” is as much about vampires as “Night on Earth” is about taxi drivers or “Coffee and Cigarettes” is about either of those things. And if characters in Jarmusch films need a better excuse to be layabouts and wear sunglasses indoors, actually being a vampire is about as good of an excuse as any.

Jarmusch’s films exude coolness, and in a time when vampires are particularly in vogue, Jarmusch has found a unique vessel for his stories of mismatched relationships, affinities for the retro and ironic romance. “Only Lovers Left Alive” is dripping with style. It’s a vampire movie full of intrigue but remains mostly plotless without action or special effects. That the entire thing is absolutely magnetic despite it all is part of Jarmusch’s magic.

Jarmusch splits the time between urban Tangiers and an apartment on a notably empty street in Detroit. The film is so chic, so distinctly colored in every moment, it could belong to any time or place, and yet it is remarkably modern. Living abroad is Eve (Tilda Swinton), whose luxurious, golden, flowing robes are centuries old, and yet she still communicates fluently with an iPhone. Her only real companion is another vampire, Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), who confirms for us that he did in fact give his plays to Shakespeare. It’s one of Jarmusch’s wry jokes playing vampires allows him to make, with characters taking credit for Schubert’s symphonies and spending time with Mary Shelley.

Her lover for several centuries is Adam (Tom Hiddleston), living alone in Detroit and making droning, melancholy, underground rock and only leaving the house to bribe a hospital worker for blood. He’s assisted by a helpful and adoring human named Ian (Anton Yelchin), clueless to Adam’s real nature but more than willing to get him rare, vintage guitars and bullets made of a fine wood. Only in a Jim Jarmusch film can the characters have conversations about types of wood and the mechanics of a guitar. It’s odd, tedious conversation, as all of Jarmusch’s films concern, and yet it’s dryly eloquent humor no one does better.

Eve travels to Detroit to visit Adam and be together again, spending the days drinking blood, wrapping their pale, nude bodies in beautiful, languid poses and travelling the deserted streets of Detroit. Jarmusch gets an Easter Egg in as they drive past Jack White’s childhood home, but it allows for a touching ode to the city most of all. “Only Lovers Left Alive” operates as a social commentary, the backdrop of Detroit a symbol of modern society’s deterioration and its secret beauty, and with the all-knowing, experienced vampires acting as witness to the “zombies’” foibles and ignorance throughout history. The vampires here may be undead, but their eventless lives contain more beauty and wisdom than the humans they view as simply brain dead.

Jarmusch is entitled to lay all the blame he wants because the film is so finely written and photographed; it’s a dream to look at and experience. When they drink blood, they fall backwards in trippy delight, the camera attached on a harness. In their chambers, Yorick Le Saux’s camera spins in delirium and perches at sinister canted angles. The film’s dialogue is like poetry. Eve describes a distant star as “a diamond that emits the music of a gigantic gong,” and it all moves to the musicality and laid-back energy of the film.

More so, “Only Lovers Left Alive” is a treasure trove of relics, knowledge and style. Eve reads books in countless languages with a swift page turn. Adam constructs video calls using the technology of yesterday, and he speaks of the wisdom of scientists that has been silenced by skeptics for generations, from Galileo to Tesla to people still debating over Darwin.

Tilda Swinton melts into roles like this, demonstrating why she’s one of the most fascinating actresses today. But the real revelation is Hiddleston. His rise to stardom has rested on awkward charm, and here he has a Jim Morrison swagger, walking around shirtless with a guitar and stringy dark hair. His hushed, understated expressions make him wonderfully masculine and droll as he admires his century old guitar, bemoans the rudimentary wiring outside his home or sarcastically scowls at Eve’s bubbly sister (Mia Wasikowska).

Swinton and Hiddleston have chemistry worthy of an eternal romance. Jarmusch’s film is simple and elegant enough to allow it to thrive, and in capturing that feeling of eternity, “Only Lovers Left Alive” is just about the coolest film he’s ever made.

4 stars