Permanent Vacation Reviews

(MU) There's already Jarmusch's ideas, characters and style; but lacks the humour, the angel, of later films. Kaurismakian but short on humour...

Ever since I have seen 'Dead Man' when it was released, I have always been a fan of Jim Jarmusch. To be honest, I didn't care much about his latest work but I still try to catch his movies when I get the chance. Anyway, it took me many years to finally see his directing debut but I'm glad I managed to see it. He made it back in 1980 when he was still a student at a film school with a 12.000 dollar shoestring budget from a misused scholarship. Basically, it is a typical Jarmusch effort, with very little action, very little character development but some quite mesmerizing directing. It wasn't very well received by the critics and it wasn't even released theatrically but, right from the start, it established many of his trademarks that we will see in his following features. To be honest, the acting was not really impressive and the pacing was kind of sluggish but I really enjoy his directing in general. While watching this, I was thinking that if the guys from the Beat generation like Jack Kerouac for example made movies instead of books, it would have probably looked like this. To conclude, even if it was far from being really amazing, even though it is really an acquired taste, I actually liked the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.