I watched this film for one reason; Tom Waits did the
soundtrack. It turns out this was far from being the highlight of the film, not
to say that there is anything wrong with the soundtrack (although being an obsessive fan I probably wouldn’t notice),
it’s just that the film itself surpassed expectations. Tom Waits’ music is not a
natural fit for a background soundtrack. What he produced was not like his
normal output, rather it was Franks Wild Years style
riffing that (for me) perfectly gelled with the plot, bookended with more
typical creations of his.
Setting my (possibly unhealthy) obsessions aside, this 1991
film is the most accessible of all the Jim Jarmusch films I have seen. The
narrative follows five shorts in five different cities following taxi drivers,
their passengers and their journeys both physical and otherwise. Los Angeles,
New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki provide the settings, supposedly chosen because
of Jarmusch’s desire to work with certain actors.
Without wanting to give anything away the five shorts
oscillate in style, the opening starring Winona Ryder lays the seeds of humour,
drama, existential musing and brilliant characters that are teased out over the
following vignettes. The whole film is shot with a simplistic beauty, a
minimalism that manages to express far more than blatant overwrought shots. This
is not to say that it is pretentious arthouse fare but rather it is
unfalteringly entertaining (the section in Rome left e close to incontinence
with laughter) in a different way and doesn’t try for a blunderbuss message
that patronises the audience. Night on
Earth is funny, thought-provoking, seriously cool, beautiful to look at and
above all, heartfelt. Put simply, this is a great film.
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