Anyone
familiar with this blog (and I know there are many, right?), would
now that at the beginning of each year I write a list of my most
anticipated features of the upcoming twelve months. When I heard
that Jim Jarmusch was making a new film, it immediately made it onto
this list just on the back of his two previous features, “Only
Lovers Left Alive” and “Paterson”, which were both genius.
Then word broke that the film Jarmusch was working on was actually a
zombie comedy, which sounded an odd decision, as it seemed such a
mainstream idea and already done to death. Most people immediately
brought up the fact that Jarmusch had only recently struck gold with
another overdone trope of horror; the vampire film. While this is
true, zombies have nothing to them as they are rotting flesh
reanimated, compared to the tragic figure of a vampire, and as such
there isn't a huge amount you can do with them that is different, in
terms of a narrative. So while I was still anticipating “The Dead
Don't Die”, it is safe to say that I was a little worried about it
too, but I believed enough in Jarmusch to think that he wouldn't be
making the film if he didn't have a unique take on the subject. Then
the trailer for the film came out, and all my worst fears appeared
realised, as it looked terrible. My heart sank and my anticipation
started to drop, but there was still the chance that the trailer was
not representative of the film as a whole, and perhaps due to the
Jarmusch quirkiness inside, that marketers found it hard to promote,
thus the poor trailer. As you can see, I was clutching at straws
whilst trying to stay optimistic, and then luckily it was announced
for MIFF to give me a chance to see it for myself.
The
plot of “The Dead Don't Die” is just like any other zombie film
but here goes: After a slight variation in the Earth's axis starts to
alter the normal fabric of day to day life (like the sun staying out
much later than is usual, watches stopping, phone signals dying etc),
the peaceful town of Centerville must fight for their lives when the
undead become reanimated and start rising from their graves.
Man,
oh man, this film was a bit of a disaster. The posters amusingly
state that the film has “the greatest zombie cast ever
disassembled” , and it is hard to argue with that. “The Dead
Don't Die” has a fantastic cast, the majority of them Jarmusch
regulars, and sadly they are all totally wasted. It is a total
travesty to have such a cast and then do nothing with them. The
majority of them end up only being in the film to be zombies or to be
zombie fodder. The only ones tied to the actual plot are Bill
Murray, Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny, who all play police officers
tasked with trying to first work out what is going on and then help
the town of Centerville survive this zombie onslaught. Out of these
three, only Sevigny can hold her head up high, with the other two
being far too laconic in their performances. I understand that this
style of acting was no doubt instructed by Jarmusch, and so he should
take most of the blame here, but his usual deadpan style just does
not work in a zombie movie as they need more immediacy to work
proper. The rest of the cast are essentially glorified cameos
although I must admit I did enjoy some of them. Steve Buscemi
(working with Jarmusch for the first time since 1995's “Dead Man”
where he had a tiny role) plays Farmer Frank Miller who is basically
the redneck in the film wearing a “Making America White Again”
hat; an obvious riff on the stereotypical Trump supporter. He has
one good scene in the diner, but then is wasted after that. All of
Rosie Perez's scenes take place on television screens as she plays a
news reporter reporting the facts of the bizarre going ons. It is a
small role, but I loved her name in the film which was “Posie
Juarez”; it is a silly joke, but I must admit that it made me
giggle every time she said it. Jarmusch attempts another little name
joke with Tilda Swinton's character being named “Zelda Winston”
but I didn't find that one funny at all. Of course Tom Waits has a
role as a hermit living in the woods, and is the only character who
actually seems to understand what is going on, and that the Earth is
angry (the reason being that he lives on and respects the Earth). My
favourite bit of casting though was the return of Eszter Balint who
plays Fern, the owner of the local diner, and sadly is the inaugural
victim of the zombies. Balint was one of the leads in Jarmusch's
1984 film “Stranger Than Paradise”, and they have not worked
together since, until now with “The Dead Don't Die”. I
absolutely loved her in the film and it was so good to see her again,
and even though she is the first victim, I was happy that her role
was bigger than I was expecting.
The
problem with “The Dead Don't Die” is that it is so obvious in
everything it does, and it has a real “been there, done that”
feel to it all. It is obviously an attack on Trump's America with
the main message being that the country is full of brain dead zombies
following this despicable man. It also attacks those (like Trump)
who deny the effects of climate change, and I guess the film is also
a warning that if something is not done about it, it will end up
affecting the human race in a bad way. It also attempts to highlight
how people today have become like zombies, only concerned with
accumulating more stuff. I have no problem with the social
commentary contained within the film, but it is just done in such a
bland and obvious way. It is like the “lowest hanging fruit” of
comedy, with none of the jokes being very new or even original.
Surprisingly coming from Jarmusch, the script is just not clever at
all. Also for some unknown reason, he has added a whole “meta”
quality to the film that just does not work on any level at all! I
hated these moments with a passion, and they totally took me out of
the film. In fact, worse than that, they made me angry with the
film. The whole thing almost feels like a first draft of a script
that has been thrust into production well before it has been polished
and ready. Examples of this are the way nothing seems to gel
together when it is not connected to the main plot, especially the
subplot of the young kids, and the twenty somethings including Selena
Gomez. Whilst I can make an argument that the younger kids are in
the film to represent the future, and that we do still have a chance
because of them, I can make no argument, however, as to why Selena
Gomez and her friends are in the film because they impact nothing.
They are totally pointless. I also did not understand Tilda
Swinton's subplot at all, especially the way it ends; it felt
ridiculous and so so silly.
The
other aspect of “The Dead Don't Die” that I was surprised about
was just how lacking it was artistically. Even during the past films
of Jarmusch that I haven't connected fully with, such as “Stranger
Than Paradise” or “The Limits of Control”, I have always been
impressed with the photography, design and especially the music in
these films. “The Dead Don't Die” feels like it could have been
made by any hack filmmaker, as the images in the film are dull and
the photography is as bland and vanilla as you could imagine. What
makes this more surprising is the fact that the cinematographer was
Frederick Elmes, who has worked with Jarmusch many times before on
beautiful looking films such as “Night on Earth”, “Broken
Flowers” and “Paterson” (not to mention David Lynch's “Blue
Velvet”, “Wild at Heart” and “Eraserhead”). The only shot
in the film that impressed me was the extended one of all the zombies
rising from their graves, lit by the beautiful moonlight. The rest
of the film was seriously disappointing from a visual perspective.
So
was there anything I liked about “The Dead Don't Die”? Yes, there
was, but no where near the amount I was hoping for. Some of the gags
I admit did make me giggle (Adam Driver's car is hilarious), but what
I loved the most was when the zombies expelled dirt or dust from
their wounds when killed, as opposed to blood. It looked so good,
and at least it was something a little different to the norm. The
other thing I really enjoyed was the amount of goodwill and
recognition shown to “Night of the Living Dead”. George Romero
is name-checked during the film, a group of characters drive the same
make and model car that is used at the beginning of the 1968 film,
Pittsburgh is referenced multiple times, and even the original naked
zombie makes an appearance in “The Dead Don't Die” (and I have
just read that it was played by the same woman as in “Night of the
Living Dead”).
Overall,
I was extremely disappointed in “The Dead Don't Die” and actually
consider it to be Jim Jarmusch's worst film yet. Coming off two of
his greatest films prior to this, with “Only Lovers Left Alive”
and “Paterson”, this actually came as a bit of a shock. I know
that there are people that do love this film, but for me, it almost
didn't work on any level. The jokes are stale, and the social
commentary is obvious. For the life of me, I also cannot understand
why this very talented director added the meta element to this film,
because it was a decision that bordered on the disaster. “The Dead
Don't Die” is a poor film that sadly thinks it is cutting edge and
clever. The saddest aspect of the film though is that the whole
point of it seems to be summed up in the final line of dialogue which
is “What a fucked up world”; not very insightful at all.
2
Stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment