If local cinema can’t satisfy your appetite for independant film, the International Filmfest at Rhodes University can give you a hearty helping.
If local cinema can’t satisfy your appetite for independant film, the International Filmfest at Rhodes University can give you a hearty helping.
As usual, the International Office and School of Languages promises a provocative programme for the upcoming weeks. Five films by American Independant director, Jim Jarmusch were selected. The first film, Stranger than Paradise, showed last Tuesday.
In the film, we see that America is hardly the dream come true it’s often touted as – at least for immigrants. Jarmusch achieves so much using surprisingly little.
With minimal dialogue, few characters and a simple plot, the writer/director conveys the stark, lonely and disorientating experience of foreigners living in strange lands.
The story opens in the immigrant capital of America, New York City, where a well-integrated Hungarian immigrant, Willie (played by musician, John Lurie) now resides.
Willie seems to have adopted the habits of this new land – he watches football, drinks Budweiser, speaks English exclusively and eats TV dinners – although he has far from adopted the dogged work-ethic that typifies the working-class immigrant.
It appears Willie has shed his country of origin entirely until his cousin Eva comes to stay with him en route from Budapest, Hungary to Cleveland, Ohio.
Willie is decidedly unhelpful and abrasive towards the newcomer. Eva stays for ten days and then is off to Cleveland to live with her aunt.
Then a year later, Willie and his side-kick, Eddie, get ‘rich’ though various gambling endeavours and decide to surprise Eva in Cleveland.
Even these two scruffy characters are a welcome sight for Eva, who has been working in cold and miserable Cleveland.
When the novelty of this new place wears off, Willie’s whimsical inclinations lead the three to sunny Florida, which whispers promises of paradise.
But their problems are far from behind them, eventually they realise that even paradise can be a drag. In the final ironic twist, we are left feeling as disorientated as these hapless characters.
Though Jarmusch’s work often explores the universal themes of integration and the faulty notion of the ‘promised and’, it’s the strangeness of his films that make them so timeless.
He challenges conventional Hollywood cinematic style by shooting in black and white, employing dramatic camera angles in mundane scenes and downplaying almost everything.
The director’s fascination with the ordinary experiences of average people are what make his movies so revolutionary, and give them their enduring quality.
But for Jarmusch, who once said, “I’d rather make a film about a guy walking his dog than about the emperor of China,” we might have expected as much.
Four more films directed by Jim Jarmusch will be shown as a part of the School of Languages and International Office’s Filmfest, at Eden Grove Red Lecture Theatre.
The next film is Down by Law and will be screened tonight at 7pm. The remaining films will be shown each successive Tuesday at the same time. Entry is free and open to the public.
