ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

Adam is an underground musician who lives his depression in suburban Detroit. Eve works in the contemporary art environment and lives in Tangier. The two have been lovers for several centuries. They are vampires. When Eve talks to Adam after many years, she decides to visit him in the United States, but when Ava, Eve's younger sister and also a vampire, gets involved, the situation begins to deteriorate. Almost a year after its premiere at Cannes 2013, "Only Lovers Left Alive" (the original title) arrives in Italian cinemas thanks to Movies Inspired. As is known, we are talking about vampires, but not the ugly, dirty, and bad vampires that have come from "From Dusk Till Dawn" to the cartoonish ones of "30 Days of Night", nor the effeminate teen sparkly ones of "Twilight" and absolutely not the noble ones of the Bram Stoker tradition. With "Only Lovers Left Alive", we return to the realm of the decadent vampires of Anne Rice, those of "Interview with the Vampire", if you will, beautiful and damned, fascinating and cool like rockstars… and indeed Adam is a rockstar, another element that connects Jim Jarmusch's new film to the omnia opera of Rice, since, as many will certainly remember, the rock epic of Lestat is central in "The Queen of the Damned". Truly, this film tells us nothing new and the praise it has received in various places is certainly attributable to the fame of the author who signed it, the little prince of American indie Jim Jarmusch. Indeed, "Only Lovers Left Alive" is in full Jarmusch style: slow (very), often redundant, attentive to (good) music and desiring to explore an ideal of romance that stands outside any canon. If you are looking for a "true" vampire film and do not particularly like the "unfinished" style of the director of "Night on Earth" and "Coffee & Cigarettes", think twice before venturing into watching "Only Lovers Left Alive". The most appreciable aspect of Jarmusch's film lies in the context, the background that surrounds a story that at first glance seems narratively quite poor. Jarmusch approaches the vampiric theme with complete disinterest in the mystical creatures that are the protagonists of his film. "Only Lovers Left Alive", in fact, does not talk about vampires just as "The Addiction" by Abel Ferrara did not, but talks about humanity, moral decay, boredom, and how insignificant the life of every single human being is. Jarmusch's vampires are the result of human evolution over the centuries, a bit dandy, a bit hippie, depressed by the weight of a cosmic void that afflicts them and now disinterested in what happens around them. They feel a mix of pity and indifference towards humans, opposite to Ava's predatory instinct, who is instead the feral and vaguely sensual vampire that tradition has made us know. In this scenario, it is love that triumphs, but not that ideal from the melò, rather a romance detached from any standard, a relationship that is as carnal as it is intellectual and that marks the stylistic hallmark of the entire film. Merits that balance the all-too-long 123 minutes of duration, which focus more on the slow abandonment to the sweet idleness of the two protagonists: he is Tom Hiddleston, Marvel's evil Loki and new heartthrob of twenty-year-old spectators, he has no verve either as a vampire or as a rockstar; she, Tilda Swinton, is perhaps a result of miscasting, since her androgyny does not suit the role of a beautiful seductress. Much better the supporting actors John Hurt, in the role of the elderly vampire Marlowe, and Mia Wasikowska, now accustomed to the roles of the disturbed girl and here a terrible little vampire. If the film captures, it is mainly thanks to the magnetic music of Jozef van Wissem and the inspired direction, which on several occasions abandons itself to virtuosity and inventive movements that hit the mark. Otherwise, there is a lot of boredom, the feeling of narrative sterility, a lack of originality. Patrons of certain high/freak cinema and Jarmusch's most loyal fans will be in raptures, everyone else probably will not retain a very vivid memory in the days following the viewing. Rounded-up vote.