Jim Jarmusch’s new revisionist vampire film, “Only Lovers Left Alive,” opens with a beautiful series of shots that reveal the whole film. Spinning stars fill the screen, then a spinning record, then the stars Swinton and Hiddleston, laying stone still in the middle of spinning rooms; these immortals are the still center of a ceaselessly spinning world.
Hypercultured, weighed down with ennui, these are truly the vampires of our times, though they themselves are timeless. Freed from the rhythms and restraints of a normal, fixed lifespan, they are free to indulge their every sensualist whim. Adam (Tom Hiddleston), lives in an abandoned quarter of post-industrial Detroit, making funereal music, fiddling with old technology, and only interacting with the world through Ian (Anton Yelchin), a musician who brings him antique instruments and other necessities. His wife Eve (Tilda Swinton) is in Tangiers (apparently immortality takes the sting out of long distance relationships) and tries to live a more spontaneous lifestyle; reading, appreciating nature, and hanging out with Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), who is still “scratching away” after all these years. Their only need is blood, which they mostly acquire without killing, but is still pursued with the fervor of junkies looking for heroin. When they drink it (from antique absinthe glasses), they sink back into themselves with a look of junk bliss consuming their features.
While the film never reveals just how many vampires there are, they are a shadowy, but important influence on centuries of the greatest culture of the western world. Adam reminisces about his old friends Shelly and Lord Byron and recalls giving concertos to Schubert. Likewise, Marlowe laments giving his plays to Shakespeare so many years ago. Adam is a pure creator, writing music for his own satisfaction, rarely deigning to release music to the general public, whom he refers to as zombies. But though he tries to deny it, he is a believer in art and portraits of his (and presumably Jarmusch’s) artistic idols dominate part of his home, ranging from Poe to Buster Keaton, Burroughs to Nikola Tesla. The film is a feast of allusions, down to various literary aliases that Adam and Eve use, such as Stephen Dedalus and Daisy Buchanan for their passports.
If I seem to be fixating on details, rather than plot, it’s because the film does as well. The film moves like its protagonists, languorously, lingeringly, finding pleasure and beauty in small objects and moments. The story, such as it is, kicks into gear when Eve visits Adam in the ruins of Detroit, only to have their idyll shattered by the uninvited arrival of her wild younger sister, Eva (Mia Wasikowska). But “Only Lovers Left Alive” isn’t about a plot, it’s about a worldview. The immortals dismay over the distracted, disposable lifestyles that modern humans lead and try to dedicate their own lives to ideals such as love and art. A sensuous evocation of Jim Jarmusch’s passions, “Only Lovers Left Alive” shines with a menacing beauty and shows that culture, like history, is made at night.
