Night on Earth

This is a truly amazing movie which I love. It has five different stories, each on a different city, with very different people, but all in a taxi. All the people are very different, with different background, ambitions, culture and personality, but in the end, so similar. I loved every part of it, some of them are very funny, others touching, depressing, heartbreaking, enjoyable or simply beautiful. They are all wonderful portraits of the city in which they happen. They don't show touristic locations, but how the cities really are and how people behave and think. Every story is well told, with great pace, amazing, believable dialogs and realistic characters that you get to know very well in little time. They work both together and alone. They're all great and I can't choose my favorite.

In the first segment, a young tomboy taxi driver meets a wealthy talent seeker, who wants to cast her in a movie. In New York, an afro American meets an immigrant, his cab driver, lost in the city. In Paris, a blind girl takes a ride with an irritable cab driver from the Ivory Coast and they talk about life and blindness. In Rome, a cab driver picks up a priest and starts confessing, and in Helsinki a miserable driver picks up three drunks and they speak about the most depressing things that ever happened to them.

The direction is amazing in all its simplicity. The camera angles are steady, usually focusing no the actors and allowing you to concentrate on the dialogs.But there are some that show the city, the cars passing, the buildings, lovers in the middle of the night, junkies, etc, and these have unusual quality.

The acting is great by everyone. Winona Ryder, frequently criticized, is in my opinion very funny and totally different from her other roles. I really enjoyed her acting. Gena Rowlands plays her "opposite" in a nice, underacting way. Armin Mueller-Stahl is very touching and expressive (the moment he says he was a clown is very beautiful), with an amazing use of his eyes. Giancarlo Esposito and Jennifer Perez are fun to watch, too. Béatrice Dalle is incredibly charismatic and believable as a blind young woman, and Isaach De Bankolé is good. Roberto Benigni is about as hilarious as you can get, in his one man show. His speech is obviously very funny, but Benigni makes it mind blowing. Some will hate it, though I couldn't stop laughing. Matti Pellonpää delivers his speech in a dramatic, depressive way but without overacting.

The cinematography and the music are beautiful, make this movie feel nostalgic and help linking the segments. This is a very original, worthwhile movie.

Jim Jarmusch does for movies as Tom Waits does for music, no wonder he uses his music in his films. I've seen this movie over and over, its truly wonderful. We glimpse A side of the world that is the same no matter where you go. The world is round so no matter where you go you are always in the center of it. Here we catch a Taxi in different cities around the globe and although the cultures are clearly different , there is something of the blues in each act. I can't make out which one is my favorite, they all have a certain magic to them that totally captures to mood of the country we are in although the mood itself is that of the night where not much seems to be going on really except in our taxis. Each scene in this film is a masterpiece, no matter which country Jarmusch takes us too. Of course Benigni needless I mention is that little bit more of a of a superstar but for that matter so is the blind girl in Paris. Great music, great photography, great acting, its all good. Its magic!

One night, five cities, five taxis. Five short stories set in Los Angles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki involving taxi drivers, their customers, new connections made, lessons learned, opportunities and pain.

Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, Night on Earth is a collection of five short stories with the link being that almost the entire story plays out in taxi with the main character being the taxi driver. The five stories occur roughly simultaneously in five different cities across the globe on the same night. Highly original in concept and setting.

Each story is wonderfully crafted by Jarmusch, with interesting, engaging characters and great interplay between the driver and their customers. There's also some interesting, edifying themes to the stories, presented in a subtle, non-confrontational way. Each story gives us different types of characters and different tones (and apart from Los Angeles vs New York, different languages!).

Cast is filled with big names - Winona Ryder, Gena Rowlands, Giancarlo Esposito, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Rosie Perez, Roberto Benigni, Beatrice Dalle - and nobody puts a foot wrong. Other than Gena Rowlands, none of these were huge stars yet, so Jarmusch certainly had an eye for emerging talent. The stand-outs are Winona Ryder as the rough, tomboyish Corky and Roberto Benigni as the hilariously funny Italian driver.

Great film.

It's not that this movie is non stop laughs, but just that it is so smart and such intelligent humor. It's got a clever premise about five short stories involving cab rides in different cities, but it's the specific situations that will crack you up. One after another, they are all hilarious. Roberto Benini's scene had me laughing out loud, and that never happens. The only sketch that wasnt so great was the opening one with Winona Ryder. Everything that followed it rocked and impressed the hell out of me. A smart comedy. not too many of those.

Since I have almost seventeen years of experience in the taxi business as a dispatcher and driver, I have to say that "Night on Earth" is one of my favorite movies! This movie gives a very real and comical portrayal of life in this line of work. I've known people who were given great opportunities, and rejected them. I've personally kicked drunk idiots out of my cab. I've had blind people tell me which route to take. I've had people who were so "down and out" tell me their life story. This is a film that portrays what taxi driving is all about, and it is not limited to the USA. People are the same all over the world! This movie is not yet available on DVD in the USA, but I really hope it will be soon!