Culture

Rating: 3/5

Only Lovers Left Alive is a slim and idiosyncratic film that has received more of a mixed bag of reviews than the Film Festival itself. A darkly funny take on the tired vampire genre, it documents the centuries-old romance between vampires Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) as they question their place within the chaos of the twenty-first century.

Adam has appropriately chosen Detroit as his home at the end of the world; Swinton, the chaos of Tangiers. The film envisages the vampires as a pair of ageing rockers, for whom sucking blood is “so fifteenth century,” and is perhaps the first vampire film for hipsters. While this tag is accurate, however, it shouldn’t be completely offputting. The film’s joy comes not just from the gloomily witty dialogue, but from Jarmusch’s patient (read: slow) direction, which treats its central figures more like art projects than film stars.

With an opening scene that contains more romance and intrigue than all the Twilight films combined, the film is framed almost entirely at midnight. My favourite sequences involved Adam and Eve cruising the abandoned Detroit streets. The film is a celebration of art and the artist, with extended takes focussing on Moroccan street musicians, the grungy aesthetic of Adam’s music and the couple’s games of chess, often followed by their ritual toasting of blood champagne. While all this is entertaining, the film is neither as insightful nor weighty as it attempts to be. Indeed, its literary references annoy more than amuse (Eve’s passport reads “Daisy Buchanan,” for instance, and Adam is referred to as Dr Faust). It’s almost as though Jarmusch has targeted it at students: the hipster appreciation for Swinton, for this genre and for the European setting all reek of him trying to win favour with the audience, rather than having good reason to include them in the film.

Indeed, Only Lovers Left Alive walks the fine tightrope between being aggressively quirky and entertainingly weird. By the end, I had succumbed to all the film’s charms, especially its pseudo-intellectual banter and the entrancing performances by Swinton and Hiddleston. These two elevate the film beyond its sweet, vaguely comedic origins, bringing real chemistry and romance to the proceedings. Neither as wise nor as funny as it would like to be, Only Lovers Left Alive is nonetheless a pleasantly ambitious entry into the vampire genre, breathing life into this well-worn breed.