Only Lovers Left Alive

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Movie
German title Only Lovers Left Alive
Original title Only Lovers Left Alive
Country of production Great Britain , Germany
original language English
Publishing year 2013
length 123 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Jim Jarmusch
script Jim Jarmusch
production Jeremy Thomas ,
Reinhard Brundig
music Jozef van Wissem
camera Yorick Le Saux
cut Affonso Gonçalves
occupation

Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 romantic drama directed by Jim Jarmusch about vampires in the present. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton star in the British - German co-production . The film was nominated for a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013.

Filming location parking lot Michigan Theater

action

John Hurt, Slimane Dazi, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston and Jim Jarmusch at the 2013 Cannes International Film Festival

The vampires Adam and Eve are a married couple. You have known each other for centuries and have already met some important cultural and scientific figures. While the cultivated Eve lives in Tangier and devotes himself primarily to literature, the melancholy Adam lives in Detroit , where he has made a name for himself in the underground scene with psychedelic music. The two communicate with each other mainly via the Internet, but unlike Eve, Adam has problems finding his way in the modern world. Both are determined not to bite people anymore. They use other methods of obtaining blood: Eve gets the "substance" from her friend Christopher Marlowe , Adam gets the blood for cash at the hospital. When Eve finds out that Adam is down, she flies to Detroit to visit him. They play chess together and eat ice-cream stored in the refrigerator on a stick of blood group zero negative. But a short time later, to Adam's chagrin - and after 87 years of absence - Eve's younger, exalted and easy-going sister Ava turns up and disturbs the togetherness of the two with her chaotic manner. After a concert she breaks the rules and sucks Adam's colleague Ian, a "zombie" - Adam's term for mortal - with a bite in the throat. Ava is thrown out of the house and Ian's body is destroyed in an industrial acid container after driving through Detroit at night. In order to avoid investigation, Adam and Eve fly to Tangier, where they witness the death of Marlowe, who consumed contaminated blood products. Since he has supplied Eve with blood so far, Adam and Eve are noticeably losing their strength. In their thirst for blood, they finally attack a pair of lovers.

History and shooting

Although the financing of the film project was not yet secured, Jarmusch, who also wrote the screenplay, announced in 2010 that he could win Tilda Swinton, Michael Fassbender , Mia Wasikowska and John Hurt as actors. Fassbender was then replaced by Tom Hiddleston. The project was finally financed by the Filmstiftung NRW, among others . The budget was around 7 million euros.

The shooting took place from June 2012 in Detroit , Tangier , Hamburg , Cologne and Leverkusen . Bina Daigeler designed the costumes .

For Jarmusch himself, Adam and Eve stand as "metaphors for the current state of human life - they are fragile and in danger, sensitive to the violence of nature and for the short-sighted behavior of those in power".

Reviews

Jarmusch's film received mostly positive reviews.

In his review in Spiegel , Tim Caspar Boehme particularly praised the camera work and directorial work by Jarmusch, who, through his cautious approach, created “ poetic images with their very own stories” in Only Lovers Left Alive . The camera looks "almost tenderly at the overgrown beauty of the former metropolis " during the nocturnal car trips through the deserted Detroit , as if Jarmusch had wanted to "memorialize the bankrupt ' Motor City ' with these daylight-free images". The genre of the vampire film only provides a framework for “plenty of situational comedy and dry humor” in a film that always allows “a lot of time to tell”.

Björn Hayer praised Jarmusch's film in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , which continues the vampire myth in a multilayered form, the “successful mixture of romance , horror drama and music film ”; is told "in the fate of the vampire of the melancholy of modern urbanity ".

Daniel Kothenschulte from the Frankfurter Rundschau saw in Jarmusch's film adaptation, which is characterized by culturally infatuated vampirism , a film about a “very adult love” in which all passion is satisfied “in casual agreement”. However, this is exactly what makes Only Lovers Left Alive's special charm as a love story that - unlike what is usual in this genre - tells of "silent soulmates".

Silvia Hallensleben from Tagesspiegel described Only Lovers Left Alive as Jarmusch's most personal film to date, reminiscent of Renaissance masters with “ somnambulistic music” and also in the visual composition with its “ chiaroscuro effects ”. The film is a "wistful elegy on the analogue age and also a sign of coming spiritual and ecological catastrophes" and is primarily aimed at an adult audience who can really "appreciate" the "violent touch of melancholy".

The Mainzer Allgemeine Zeitung highlighted the bizarre and lovable characters in Only Lovers Left Alive , who lived from the “undercooled acting of the top-class actors”. Despite all its melancholy, Jarmusch's film is "not a purely culture-pessimistic treatise "; many scenes and dialogues are characterized by the subtle humor typical of the director. The comedy is in language and situations; this “ screen epic ” with its “timeless subject matter and a great grungy soundtrack” represents a “highly comical hymn to life and eternal love”.

Susan Vahabzadeh also praised the " black Jarmusch humor " in the Süddeutsche with Eve's witty gags and Adam's open sarcasm . Only Lovers Left Alive is Jarmusch's “best work in years - funny and melancholy, maybe a little cryptic , multi-layered encoded”. Although the story that he tells is sometimes a little gossip, the images and the mood they conjure speak for themselves; Adam and Eve are "pretty much the last real people". The world that Jarmusch lets emerge in his film is a " hodgepodge , a 'best of' the centuries and cultures", in which what people consider to be worth preserving. In this “longing for yesterday” that Only Lovers Left Alive drives, there is also hope for a “real, indestructible feeling”.

In contrast, Adrian Prechtel criticized the work in the Munich evening newspaper as a worn-out vampire film about the "loneliness of the intellectual " and his feeling of having "fallen out of the time that was raging superficial mischief in front of the door". Jarmusch's film sinks into a "tearful tone, pop nostalgia and slowness sucked out of life". Despite its numerous cultural and intellectual allusions, the film has "no real appeal". Jarmusch provided "at best a basic color scheme for an overall pale and ultimately bland film".

Rupert Koppold of the Stuttgarter Zeitung saw in Jarmusch's “Vampirelegie” an “art project with a bit of sex”, which, however, “always with style ” creates a “wonderfully decadent atmosphere”. Jarmusch celebrates "exquisite stagnation" in it, but the film has no "bite" for a very long time.

Awards

In 2016, Only Lovers Left Alive ranked 72nd in a BBC poll of the 100 most important films of the 21st century .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Only Lovers Left Alive . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2013 (PDF; test number: 140 952 K).
  2. ↑ Information on moviepilot.de (accessed on January 3, 2013)
  3. ^ Press conference in Cannes , approx. 37:40, statement by Reinhard Brundig (accessed on January 6, 2014)
  4. ↑ Nothing is sacred to the present . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 25, 2013, accessed on February 3, 2014
  5. ^ Vampire film "Only Lovers Left Alive": Alone in Detroit . In: Der Spiegel, December 25, 2013, accessed on February 3, 2014
  6. ↑ Forever out of time . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 20, 2013, accessed on February 3, 2014
  7. ↑ In the crypt . In: Frankfurter Rundschau, December 23, 2013, accessed on February 3, 2014
  8. ↑ When vampires love too much . In: Der Tagesspiegel, December 23, 2013, accessed on February 3, 2014
  9. ↑ Cinema column: Jim Jarmusch's romantic vampire drama "Only Lovers Left Alive" . In: Allgemeine Zeitung, January 2, 2014, accessed on February 3, 2014
  10. ↑ Nothing is sacred to the present . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 25, 2013, accessed on February 3, 2014
  11. ↑ Fade Pale by Jim Jarmusch . In: Abendzeitung München, December 26, 2013, accessed on February 3, 2014
  12. ↑ Elegy of the night . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung, December 24, 2013, accessed on February 3, 2014
  13. ↑ 2014 Awards | Boston Online Film Critics Association. Retrieved July 13, 2020 (American English).
  14. ↑ 15th Annual Award Winners. January 6, 2015, accessed on July 13, 2020 .