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Broken Flowers by Jim Jarmusch

Summary: Another must see movie on my list http www angelikafilmcenter com newyork film asp RadiantID=4465Jim Jarmusch was silent or hasn t showed us any movies last five years and came up with this movie Now he is 55 years old gray haired gentleman I read that article partially though His interview with The New York Times reportor at the cafe near his apartment in East Village appeared last week of The New York Times Sunday magaine but I missed it Z I went back last night to retrieve that article on the web www nyt com but there was $3 75 charge to dig up one week old article It s funy that one word he hates most was Indy He hates to his films to be called labeled and catagoried as Independent movie He said people notably movie critics labeled him a father of independent movie purely based on movie industry funding sources a movie produced not by major movie corporations but independantly He pointed out what the point to catagory movie by where the money came from and added he has been done what he likes to do and he shows what he sees I was lucky enough to listen his interview at NPR station http www npr org templates story story php storyId=4786942His films has been eye openers to me I can watch again and again I can tast it I can chew on it I can relate myself into it And I smell people His films are really hand made ones not churned from movie studio factories His films are not the one which sits on Box of revenue list I hate to see any film praised for number of people watched or number of tickets sold but sadly enough that s all norm these days I think he is one of the most talented director and thoughtful intellectural depite of his punky white hair style and down to earth east village residency He stuided his film at Columbia and NYU s film school as well as at the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris then worked as an asssistant with renown directors such as Nicholas Ray and Wim Wenders Night on Earth his 1991 film he wrote entire script in 8 days still echos my head once a while Tom Wait s deep humble and beasty vocal sounds rocks my brain after all those years Night on Earth stuck on my head not only my fond of this film but my intense korean cultural expedition introduced by my friends and identity as being korean took place simutaneously as I watched this movie I watched Night on Earth around mid 90s at the school I met lots of my dear korean friends who just came from korea to study We became friends very quickly and the flux of korean media overwhelmed around us too as we spent the great deal of time together from great koeran cinema directors to flood of TV shows My naked Korean culture receptor was suddenly exposed in dual cultures I watched Night on Earth and same time I watched those korean TV drama introduced by friends my U Hak Sang friends has ceiling height stacks of Korean TV shows on Video Tapes But I couldn t relate much of Korean TV shows myself in poor quality of duplicated video tapes nor didn t find my worthness to spend my time on it But my friends went on to watch tapes after tapes days and nights They buried their all cultural receptors if there was any into those tapes When my school organized summer outdoor film festival with full list of wonderful cinema it didn t bother my friends much even though it was all funded by student activity fees They talked about each episode in great length not only stories but also cloths bags watches shown on episode Something I couldn t jump into conversation Something I was very alienated Something I couldn t comprehend not Korean TV drama itself but the way my friends spend their prestigeous time on such souless media despite being everything was being paid by hard earned cash from parents in Korea from tuition to toilet paper anyhow I also watched days and nights as much as I could Stranger Than Paradise Coffee and Cigarettes Down by Law Mystery Train Night on Earth Dead Man Ghost Dog It was great resources of entertaiment after all regardless who watches what and perhaps thosenoisy scratchy video tapes were cure for some of homesickness I also wondered briefly and scratchly why anyone whose all expenses including tuiton to comfortable living costs were paid in advance by parents at home and surrounded by friends and relative has so much homesickness I shouldn t care much anyway but all those was my distant memory from certain period When I read an article about Jim Jarmusch from The New York Times Magazine last week and heard a news Broken Flower movie was opened last week all those memories came to me as flash back Jim Jarmusch vs Korean TV drama tapes Over the this weekend I had a chance to have a big dinner with my friends There I heard awefully familiar conversation again as if I hear from distant memory echo and felt same way as before My friends were telling me a new korean TV drama episode Sam Soon e Something I couldn t jump into conversation Something I was very alienated Something I never expect to hear again but I did again in big surprise Suddenly I lost my sense of belongness After all those year of soul search I guess I am in nowhere now it seems I am not in Korea nor I am not in US either At least I was glad I don t have to meet those friends often and I don t share my soul with them either And nonetheless to say It made me to watch Broken Flower more than anythign else I gotta watch as soon as possible to wash my mouth to refresh my cultural receptivities By A O SCOTTPublished August 5 2005With Broken Flowers Jim Jarmusch s sly touching new film Bill Murray reaffirms his status as the quietest comic actor in movies today His voice barely rises above a murmur and his face remains almost perfectly still its slightest tics and flickers captured by Mr Jarmusch s discreet mostly stationary camera The stillness is appropriate since at the start of the movie Mr Murray s character Don Johnston seems to have arrived at a point of stasis in his life We first see Don on the couch in his large tastefully decorated suburban home His latest girlfriend Sherry Julie Delpy is in the midst of leaving him an event Don greets with a resignation that looks a lot like indifference He is surrounded by nice stuff a big television sleek furniture a Mercedes sedan and has plenty of money having been some kind of computer entrepreneur before retiring A movie or a movie critic more inclined toward psychologizing might suggest that Don was depressed In any case as he tips over on his couch and falls asleep we can surmise that he is inert at rest not going anywhere in particular But Broken Flowers like some of Mr Jarmusch s other movies is a road picture which sends its poker faced hero on a journey across a nondescript American landscape into his own past As Sherry is saying goodbye a letter arrives typed in red ink on pink stationery informing Don that 20 years earlier he fathered a son The anonymous message apparently from one of Don s former lovers warns him that the boy may be looking for him Don s impulse is to do nothing but his neighbor Winston Jeffrey Wright has other ideas Winston is Don s friend and also in almost every way his opposite In contrast to the slothful bachelor next door he is a hard working family man with a wife five children and three jobs He is also something of an amateur detective convinced that with the right clues and sleuthing methods Don can find the mother of his supposed son and the missing pieces of his own history And so Don sets off for brief reunions with four women he used to know who are played by Sharon Stone Frances Conroy Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton What he finds are possible clues basketball hoops suggesting the presence of a male child a typewriter sitting on a patch of unkempt lawn various pink objects including a bauble encrusted cellphone and also further puzzles His welcome as he shows up in a rented car with a bouquet of flowers varies At one house he finds warmth and a roll in the hay for old times sake but elsewhere he meets with awkwardness suspicion and even a punch in the face Does he find what he was looking for I can t really say and only partly because I don t want to spoil the movie Winston s belief that the truth can be known about other people about oneself is an idea the movie respects but does not really endorse We go to the theater expecting to see experience tied up in a neat attractive package but the best movies the ones that insert themselves into our own experiences and ways of looking at life frustrate that expectation Broken Flowers is certainly beautiful as lilting and seductive as the music by the Ethiopian jazz artist Mulatu Astatke that accompanies Don on his trip Mr Jarmusch s frames are full of odd lovely details and he has a rigorous visual wit reminiscent of classic cartoons and silent comedies He also has a teasing literary sense of artifice But he never goes for the obvious emotion or the easy disclosure preferring elusiveness to exposition and tracking subtle shifts of mood rather than choreographing dramatic confrontations The emotions he uncovers are not always easy to name Hovering around the edges of the frame and playing across Mr Murray s mouth and eyes are longing disappointment bafflement and an earnest sense of wonder As he goes off in search of the loose ends of his earlier romantic life Don finds regret but he also seems to be returning to the source of his fascination with women Each of the actresses brings an indelible eccentric individuality to the screen We wish we could spend more time with them or go back in time to see them with the younger Don The movie s title may imply the defeat of romance but it is also a defense of romanticism its own and Don s as an approach to life that while it Another must see movie on my list http www angelikafilmcenter com newyork film asp RadiantID=4465Jim Jarmusch was silent or hasn t showed us any movies last five years and came up with this movie Now he is 55 years old gray haired gentleman I read that article partially though His interview with The New York Times reportor at the cafe near his apartment in East Village appeared last week of The New York Times Sunday magaine but I missed it Z I went back last night to retrieve that article on the web www nyt com but there was $3 75 charge to dig up one week old article It s funy that one word he hates most was Indy He hates to his films to be called labeled and catagoried as Independent movie He said people notably movie critics labeled him a father of independent movie purely based on movie industry funding sources a movie produced not by major movie corporations but independantly He pointed out what the point to catagory movie by where the money came from and added he has been done what he likes to do and he shows what he sees I was lucky enough to listen his interview at NPR station http www npr org templates story story php storyId=4786942His films has been eye openers to me I can watch again and again I can tast it I can chew on it I can relate myself into it And I smell people His films are really hand made ones not churned from movie studio factories His films are not the one which sits on Box of revenue list I hate to see any film praised for number of people watched or number of tickets sold but sadly enough that s all norm these days I think he is one of the most talented director and thoughtful intellectural depite of his punky white hair style and down to earth east village residency He stuided his film at Columbia and NYU s film school as well as at the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris then worked as an asssistant with renown directors such as Nicholas Ray and Wim Wenders Night on Earth his 1991 film he wrote entire script in 8 days still echos my head once a while Tom Wait s deep humble and beasty vocal sounds rocks my brain after all those years Night on Earth stuck on my head not only my fond of this film but my intense korean cultural expedition introduced by my friends and identity as being korean took place simutaneously as I watched this movie I watched Night on Earth around mid 90s at the school I met lots of my dear korean friends who just came from korea to study We became friends very quickly and the flux of korean media overwhelmed around us too as we spent the great deal of time together from great koeran cinema directors to flood of TV shows My naked Korean culture receptor was suddenly exposed in dual cultures I watched Night on Earth and same time I watched those korean TV drama introduced by friends my U Hak Sang friends has ceiling height stacks of Korean TV shows on Video Tapes But I couldn t relate much of Korean TV shows myself in poor quality of duplicated video tapes nor didn t find my worthness to spend my time on it But my friends went on to watch tapes after tapes days and nights They buried their all cultural receptors if there was any into those tapes When my school organized summer outdoor film festival with full list of wonderful cinema it didn t bother my friends much even though it was all funded by student activity fees They talked about each episode in great length not only stories but also cloths bags watches shown on episode Something I couldn t jump into conversation Something I was very alienated Something I couldn t comprehend not Korean TV drama itself but the way my friends spend their prestigeous time on such souless media despite being everything was being paid by hard earned cash from parents in Korea from tuition to toilet paper anyhow I also watched days and nights as much as I could Stranger Than Paradise Coffee and Cigarettes Down by Law Mystery Train Night on Earth Dead Man Ghost Dog It was great resources of entertaiment after all regardless who watches what and perhaps thosenoisy scratchy video tapes were cure for some of homesickness I also wondered briefly and scratchly why anyone whose all expenses including tuiton to comfortable living costs were paid in advance by parents at home and surrounded by friends and relative has so much homesickness I shouldn t care much anyway but all those was my distant memory from certain period When I read an article about Jim Jarmusch from The New York Times Magazine last week and heard a news Broken Flower movie was opened last week all those memories came to me as flash back Jim Jarmusch vs Korean TV drama tapes Over the this weekend I had a chance to have a big dinner with my friends There I heard awefully familiar conversation again as if I hear from distant memory echo and felt same way as before My friends were telling me a new korean TV drama episode Sam Soon e Something I couldn t jump into conversation Something I was very alienated Something I never expect to hear again but I did again in big surprise Suddenly I lost my sense of belongness After all those year of soul search I guess I am in nowhere now it seems I am not in Korea nor I am not in US either At least I was glad I don t have to meet those friends often and I don t share my soul with them either And nonetheless to say It made me to watch Broken Flower more than anythign else I gotta watch as soon as possible to wash my mouth to refresh my cultural receptivities By A O SCOTTPublished August 5 2005With Broken Flowers Jim Jarmusch s sly touching new film Bill Murray reaffirms his status as the quietest comic actor in movies today His voice barely rises above a murmur and his face remains almost perfectly still its slightest tics and flickers captured by Mr Jarmusch s discreet mostly stationary camera The stillness is appropriate since at the start of the movie Mr Murray s character Don Johnston seems to have arrived at a point of stasis in his life We first see Don on the couch in his large tastefully decorated suburban home His latest girlfriend Sherry Julie Delpy is in the midst of leaving him an event Don greets with a resignation that looks a lot like indifference He is surrounded by nice stuff a big television sleek furniture a Mercedes sedan and has plenty of money having been some kind of computer entrepreneur before retiring A movie or a movie critic more inclined toward psychologizing might suggest that Don was depressed In any case as he tips over on his couch and falls asleep we can surmise that he is inert at rest not going anywhere in particular But Broken Flowers like some of Mr Jarmusch s other movies is a road picture which sends its poker faced hero on a journey across a nondescript American landscape into his own past As Sherry is saying goodbye a letter arrives typed in red ink on pink stationery informing Don that 20 years earlier he fathered a son The anonymous message apparently from one of Don s former lovers warns him that the boy may be looking for him Don s impulse is to do nothing but his neighbor Winston Jeffrey Wright has other ideas Winston is Don s friend and also in almost every way his opposite In contrast to the slothful bachelor next door he is a hard working family man with a wife five children and three jobs He is also something of an amateur detective convinced that with the right clues and sleuthing methods Don can find the mother of his supposed son and the missing pieces of his own history And so Don sets off for brief reunions with four women he used to know who are played by Sharon Stone Frances Conroy Jessica Lange and Tilda Swinton What he finds are possible clues basketball hoops suggesting the presence of a male child a typewriter sitting on a patch of unkempt lawn various pink objects including a bauble encrusted cellphone and also further puzzles His welcome as he shows up in a rented car with a bouquet of flowers varies At one house he finds warmth and a roll in the hay for old times sake but elsewhere he meets with awkwardness suspicion and even a punch in the face Does he find what he was looking for I can t really say and only partly because I don t want to spoil the movie Winston s belief that the truth can be known about other people about oneself is an idea the movie respects but does not really endorse We go to the theater expecting to see experience tied up in a neat attractive package but the best movies the ones that insert themselves into our own experiences and ways of looking at life frustrate that expectation Broken Flowers is certainly beautiful as lilting and seductive as the music by the Ethiopian jazz artist Mulatu Astatke that accompanies Don on his trip Mr Jarmusch s frames are full of odd lovely details and he has a rigorous visual wit reminiscent of classic cartoons and silent comedies He also has a teasing literary sense of artifice But he never goes for the obvious emotion or the easy disclosure preferring elusiveness to exposition and tracking subtle shifts of mood rather than choreographing dramatic confrontations The emotions he uncovers are not always easy to name Hovering around the edges of the frame and playing across Mr Murray s mouth and eyes are longing disappointment bafflement and an earnest sense of wonder As he goes off in search of the loose ends of his earlier romantic life Don finds regret but he also seems to be returning to the source of his fascination with women Each of the actresses brings an indelible eccentric individuality to the screen We wish we could spend more time with them or go back in time to see them with the younger Don The movie s title may imply the defeat of romance but it is also a defense of romanticism its own and Don s as an approach to life that while it

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