Dead Man

Fantastic choice of actors, led by Johnny Depp, perfectly portraying a man who slowly crosses to the other side and blends with the nature on his last journey, and Gary Farmer, who brings some colour into this black and white masterpiece. Jarmusch overcame himself in this movie. Beautiful black and white cadres followed by Neil Young's hypnotizing guitar make us slip into a trance and drag us in another world, where we peacefully flow towards the end. The story is deep and sad, violent and romantic, at the same time full of death and full of life. The best performances of both Jarmusch and Young mixed together in one of the best movies of all time. It simply has no flaws at all.

10/10

Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man is a truly one of a kind film, a film that I have been entranced for over a decade by, and constantly revisit it's haunting beauty, poetic absurdities and stark, gorgeous black and white cinematography (holla to Robby Muller). Johnny Depp basically plays a meek, downtrodden east coast boy mired in a wild, violent and confusing journey through a western outpost town and after a love triangle ends in murder, possibly his own, he embarks on a strange, spiritual walk through a Pacific Northwest netherworld of pine trees, outlaw bounty hunters, and oddball characters, led by a Native named Nobody (the excellent Gary Farmer). Is he dead? Was he even there to begin with? Jarmusch abandons logic for an expressionist approach, and the film ends up as a hypnotic tone poem and visual palette of events that don't really make sense, and may frustrate some. But to those open to its idiosyncratic writing and determined, enigmatic style, oh what a film it is. The cast is absolutely to die for. Depp is incredible in the best performance of his extremely uneven career. The character arc he inhabits here is wonderful, taking a feeble, checkered suited mess of a man and morphing him into a ghostly, predatorial, terrifying wilderness archetypal bandit, a force of nature among the trees and mountains. Haunted eyes, quick draw kill streak, moody contemplation, it really is his finest work. Michael Wincott steals his scenes as a chatty assassin and Lance Henriksen is scary as hell, playing a hired killer who "fucked his parents, then cooked them up and ate them." (Don't ask, just go with the film's demented flow). Gabriel Byrne, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Robert Mitchum, Milli Avital, John Hurt and an especially weird Crispin Glover all nail their cameos, and Neil Young's beautiful, melodic, elemental score is the beating heart of the film. Dead Man isn't a traditional film in any sense, and in fact seems to take place in a cliché free, bizarro alternate western dream universe where the rules don't apply, but all the beauty, mysticism and rugged frontier intrigue of the genre still remain. Fine with me. One of my all time favourites.

Originally from Cleveland, William Blake gets a job as an accountant in a place called "Machine Town". Already in the train that takes him to the Dickinson wood factory an "unknown guy" warn him against the place he is going to. It is not fortune that awaits him but Death. Indeed the first night in "Machine Town", Blake is shot at and wounded. From this point on start a long journey of wandering in company of Nobody, an Indian and a philosopher.

This black and white film is mesmerizing. Obviously the black and white marks a rupture between what you are used to…So in essence this rupture is between let say classic Western and Jim Jarmush western as he re-visit the genre. It is also a way to keep the audience to what is essential…Color is a filter that can distract you, the sobriety of black and white will not.

But what exactly is essential in that movie? Beside the fact that Mr. Jarmush depict a brutal and impulsive America, the movie opposes a new born civilization that is already collapsing and a dying one that is still shining…But more than that the journey of William Blake is a metaphoric and circular voyage from misunderstanding to certitude. The guide Nobody, himself trapped between the two civilizations can not provide a cure to the passing man but may very well provide a path to a curing one. This journey from Machine Town, the "anti chamber" of hell to the sea, first step to Heaven is tremendously poetic and emotional. Also emotional is the evolution from misunderstanding to comprehension between Nobody and William Blake who eventually settles on what is essential reaching a common ground, clarity…

Help by a haunting and beautiful score from Neil Young and an extraordinary cast the film succeed in transforming the wood wagon of hell in which William Blake embarks to the wooden vessel to heaven in which he will lie.

One of the best films from Mr. Jarmush, Dead Man manages to take the audience in one of cinema most poetic journey

This film is half the reason I stopped being an investment banker and became a film-maker.

I have seen it at least ten times, and each time I discover more depth and beauty.

I have show this film to many people, and most unfortunately do not see in it what I see.

I feel sorry for them that I cannot give them my eyes, because I know that what I see in this film is really there.

For me this is one of the best films I have ever seen. Subtle in its beauty and magnificence.

If you see it and don't love it, I say see it again.

What a movie!... didn't want to see it at first.. But, then, when it begins, you take the trip with Blake to the big sea.

So beatiful pictures, such poetry in every single one of them. Hypnotic black and white scenes, still and vast nature, music that takes you down the other side.

It's the unconsious trip of one man to death, slowly descending to another level, deeper into nature. Or is he already dead and is not aware of it? Rivers, trees, animals and spirits to guide him along the way. This is a trip to self-knowledge, a hallucinational, sweet and slow resignation from needs and senses.

Amazing directing, incredible photography and an also amazing Johnny Depp, sunk in his own visions and thoughts, excellent in his portrayal of a man's abdication to parrallel levels of consiousness.

Thank god there is the indie american film making, that we see such beatiful movies.