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January 12th, 2006 by Cory Mailliard (Permalink)
Director: Jim Jarmusch Year: 2005 Add Comments |
The year-end lists have come and gone and due to forgetfulness or negligence, Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers has been conspicuously absent. Closely tied to music, the film follows a wealthy, over-the-hill Don Juan (named Don, of course) played by Bill Murray, with that deep well of existential depression that has come to characterize the comedian’s most recent persona. His reinvention in recent years has been something wonderful and amazing. Since Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, one of our most iconic funnymen has slowly turned himself into an image of late life self-flagellation. And we have watched with a mixture of fascination and guilt as he has returned again and again to torture himself for unspeakable past sins (often related to children). Murray plays the wealthy and depressed so perfectly—with such sadness—one cannot help but think the performances autobiographical.
When Don learns that he might have sired a son nineteen years earlier, his neighbor, Winston (an extremely warm Jeffrey Wright), sends him on a search for the possible mother. (Winston, a father of five, intimately understands how life changing a child can be.) Don trudges across the country, meeting the women that might have had his child and finding only a tangle of mixed signals. Essentially a mix tape of Don’s life, each meeting is its own song, with its own rhythm and melody, and each is irrevocably colored by the contents of Don’s psyche. Every awkward glance and nervous look can be translated in a million telling ways while the real meaning resonates deep and unspoken. At the same time, Jarmusch carefully counterpoints the coldness of Don’s life (his apartment almost entirely bathed in blues and grays) with Winston’s, whose home is a wash of oranges and browns and the noise of life.
Broken Flowers is one of Jarmusch’s most accessible films, yet it remains strangely uncompromising. Don stumbles through the film, barely able to function proactively, slowly coming to the terrible realization that if he does not find his son, he may be damned to see him in the face of every disheveled nineteen-year-old that crosses his path. Jarmusch refuses to pull a punch.
As I read the previous paragraphs I realize that I may have painted Broken Flowers as something hopeless and depressing. It isn’t. For all its weight Broken Flowers is surprisingly light on its feet. Maybe that’s why this new Bill Murray is so fascinating. He walks around the screen, shoulders slouched like he’s carrying a great weight, but still, we’re laughing.
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January 15th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
At the end of this movie, my friend turned to me and said, “Whoever responsible for that ending should be shot.” I laughed and said, “It’s one of the best endings I have ever seen.” Thats how much this movie splits people. I think it’s a “modern classic”, whatever that means.