In my younger years they were my bread and butter, really. I had dozens upon dozens in my collection, genre spanning, from classics to contemporary. Then something seemed to happen to them, perhaps heralded by Interview with the Vampire as the last great one, when it all started to turn sour. The terrible tumble into Underworld and Twilight where characters became an endless parade of personality deficient posers and plots became poorly executed Vampire: The Masquerade rip offs.
One by one these turkeys would be rolled out and I'd avoid every one.
I'd thought the vampire film was dead.
Ah but that was always the bloodsuckers favorite trick wasn't it? Turns out the Vampire film had only been staked. Lying dormant, in wait. With Jim Jarmusch's moody little romance, Only Lovers Left Alive, the Vampire film may have opened bloodshot eyes unto the night once more.
I don't even really need to say much about the story in Only Lovers Left Alive, and this is because the story per se really isn't all that vital. Sure, it is the story of a pair of eternal lovers, separated from one other's company for a period of time unknown, returning into one another's lives once again. But this story is really secondary to character, in the end that simplicity is what makes this film as beautiful as it is. Adam and Eve and each other, and that's all that matters. Many of the vampire tropes of old have been largely done away with here, and replaced with new, interesting aspects of the world we thought we'd seen so many times before, giving the whole thing both the element of tradition about it, as well as a breath of things unseen in the genre.
I would say there are only truly three characters in Only Lovers Left Alive. Eve, the elder vampire living in the pale stone streets of North Africa, played wonderfully by a white haired Tilda Swinton composed entirely of legs and cheekbones. Adam, her sullen and introspective lover far away in the USA, played by the gaunt and dark haired Tom Hiddleston, surrounded by his musical obsession and the streets of the city that hides him.
Although separated by half the Earth, the two never feel entirely separate, like they could have been on the other sides of the same room all along. Eve will dance to the instruments played by Adam's hands. Adam may lay dormant on his couch, awakening at the same time Eve opens her eyes on her lavish bed. They feel each other at all times. When they actually communicate with one another through the powers of modern technology, they act like they'd spoken not five minutes ago. The worlds in their eyes are both worlds of obsession, both for each other of course, and for their massive passions. Adam with his instruments, filling his crowded city apartment, and Eve with her towers of books filling every corner of her wide rooms.
Only two characters of course. Indeed Adam may have Ian, the helpful music fan who brings him instruments by order and arranges the sale of Adam's music in mysterious unmarked LP form, and Eve has her adoring old friend Marlow, who she sits in bars with discussing literature and arguing historical events. These are just extensions of the environment, in my opinion, faces to colour the atmosphere. The real characters there are the dark streets of Detroit, and the pale stone of Tangier, respectively. The locations are so much a part of our two lovers that it reveals a huge part of them, their moods, their outlook. We get the feeling they have chosen these dwellings after centuries of travelling for very personal reasons.
Adam is often driving his car through the looming, strangely claustrophobic world of Detroit. Endless empty streets yawn back at him, abandoned factories and apartments stretching out in all direction. It is lonely, dark, devoid of life. Above all it seems hopeless. Adam in turn is overwhelmed with emptiness in his life. Trying to fill it with his music only does so much, and the darkness keeps coming back to him in the end.
Tangier, on the other hand, and the white haired vampiress that chose it as her haunt, is another world. Although she only walks the streets at night, Eve strolls through lit streets, past music and people and young lovers. She sits herself in bars and watches the other patrons drink, talk, smoke. She smiles at it all and takes in the life and hope, and it flows out of her in return. Eve always has a positive view on life, even after all this time.
Still only two characters, I know. The third character takes this film above the norm for the genre in a way that made me take notice of Jarmusch's skill as a director. Music is rarely used well in film. Unless you're a Tarantino, or a Lynch, someone who uses music as a force as powerful as the imagery on screen, then the music is considered secondary.
Only Lovers Left Alive has a score so memorable, so enjoyable, and so utterly fitting to the world it fills, that is the third character that fills the places between our two lovers. Written and performed by Jozef Van Wissem and Jarmusch's musical project SQÜRL, it is a score so full of dark and light, sadness and joy, that it gives so much more to the two very different worlds our lovers live in, yet is consistent enough to remind them that they are nothing without one another, that they are still together, no matter how far apart.
Only Lovers Left Alive need not be remembered as a Vampire film, but treasured as a romance. There is the element of darkness to be expected from a film about creatures of the night, but also so much of the depth of love shared between our protagonists. What these two characters truly are is insignificant compared to what they mean to one another, and the moments that they share are something beautiful to behold.
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