Permanent Vacation

Let's not put too much lipstick on this pig. Permanent Vacation ... cool title, memorable lead, nice style and all that, but ultimately an often boring movie. The only thing that keeps this above the water is the simple fact that director Jim Jarmusch followed it up with some of the best movies of all time. So it's cool to see him blunder his way through his first oeuvre.

The fact that our hero Allie is disenfranchised because his mother is in a mental institution might constitute the oldest plot device in the book. There is really no development, no suspense, nothing intriguing. Jarmusch commits the classic mistake of every first-time filmmaker; he has yet to learn that it's not enough to put a crass character before the camera. You have to make the viewer care about him. And unfortunately you can't do that by boring the crap out of the viewer. Allie is a high-strung, messed-up kid who could franchise disenfranchisement if only he could be bothered. He has a girlfriend that should rightfully be mine, who gets a kick out of dating a pretentious freeloader with a croaky voice. He meets a bunch of strange people, nicks a car, then gets the feck out on a boat. Cue amazing end sequence shot on a boat going away from Manhattan but looking back at it.

Check it out if you're a spotty movie boffin with no social life.

Give it a miss if you're more into Hannah Montana.

This film which is, as far as I know, the first one by Jarmusch, when he still studied to become a film director, is original in its way to reinstall 'realism' – somebody would say 'surrealism' – into film art. He tries to make us understand a special psychological type of our time, a 'tourist in life' on 'permanent vacation'. People having decided to follow that life strategy don't engage themselves in anything or anyone. They just do what they 'feel like', not caring about what that means to others. Others are not really human. They are looked upon as a tourist might look upon an exotic and alien tribe.

However, they themselves also feel alienated and estranged, indeed. Why engage in anything? The home where I was born was bombed out 'by the Chinese', my mother is crazy, my father is dead, and there is no hope for the future.

Jarmusch is convincing in his description of this psychological type which might be typical of our time. It might be a descripton of himself. But that is not what makes the film original. It is rather the way he succeeds in making that description.

Already in this film he uses stationary cameras with horizontal, and sometimes vertical, views, and depicts the world, as exemplified by New York City, as ugly as it is to all of us, if we do not embellish it.

What Jarmusch has to tell might be banal to some but it is certainly something that exists and is quite difficult to make understandable to us. Exactly like the opinion of the main character. But I think he has been successful in mediating such an understanding to us who have chosen a different life strategy.

Jim Jarmusch is a filmmaker I'll always admire and will see anything he puts out. Perhaps though my expectations of his student film, Permanent Vacation, were a little high as I thought this could be the link to Stranger Than Paradise as Who's That Knocking and Mean Streets were perfectly connected for Scorsese. This is not the case, at least from what I got from the film. It's an exercise in the mundane and plot less, a tale of a vagabond type character who may or may not be nuts, who has an insane mother, and usually just loafs around the more deconstructed and decaying parts of lower Manhattan. There are some chances for it becoming more interesting than it does, and it's really because it's a case of a filmmaker finding his footing and not getting there yet.

A few bits are noteworthy in the kind of fascination that comes with watching Jarmusch's characters- like when Allie (Chris Parker) dances to the jazz record in his apartment, or the very random scene on the island. And there's a grin for a bit part for John Lurie. But there almost comes a point where the randomness becomes too diverting, and the script and (obvious) amateurs don't help matters. A monologue in a movie theater- which another commenter said was beautiful- is rambling and loses its point even as Jarmusch sorta goes back to it. Part of that scene is interesting, but it's before the monologue with the Nicholas Ray movie. Parker as an actor has that cool, quiet swagger that would be found in Stranger Than Paradise, but he also can't carry the dialog that well (particularly in the odd voice-overs).

The end of the film caps it off as he just decides to leave New York City for good on a ship. This might have a little more resonance if what led up to it had one feeling much more for Parker than distance. Permanent Vacation is like a condensed, rough, patch-work example of everything that is wrong and sometimes right with Jarmusch's work, like an early demo from some rocker who hasn't quite got the gist of everything from his inspirations. What's right with the work is that it's very well shot, particularly for an ultra low-budget drama, co-DP'd by later talent Tom DiCillo. In the end, I almost found that the film was like a Godard work, though the ones really from the 80s as opposed to those of the 60s. It's got an artist's eye and the occasional touch of grace, but it's also a jumble of a sketchpad of what's really in the filmmaker's gifts. It is unique in that you can tell who made it, that it's not another write-off of a future hack. That it doesn't really spell the promise of Jarmusch's other 80's classics is harder to figure.

Assured first film from Jarmusch is pretty tough viewing to begin with. Slow moving or not moving at all and ponderous, seeming inconsequential dialogue but then somewhere along the line we find ourselves captivated. Beautifully shot with ugly/beautiful still shots of back streets of New York. Apart from a scene showing the lead guy spray painting a sub title for the film and thereby seeming to plant the film within the late 70s or 80s, the rest of the 'action' gives more the impression of taking place in the late 60s/early 70s. It may well be that Jarmusch has not set the film in the past but that his cinematic influences are from that period. In any event this is well worth a watch and as with all the man's films there is a fiercely compassionate element. Even when the characters appear completely unappealing, we are somehow encouraged to feel some degree of empathy.

Arg! I almost want to give this movie an 8.

But the thing is, although there are interesting parts, it is also often very dull.

I could see what he was going for but too often I felt that the scenes, although interesting and fun, were lacking in depth.

I did enjoy it overall but it was also a little hard to sit through.

This was my first Jarmusch and I am looking forward to watching more. It felt appropriate because Sunday they're screening his 2nd feature at a local theater.

It did have well directed scenes, and some felt very trance-like. The main actor is not fantastic but good enough, he does show acting talent so I'm curious if I'll see him in something again.