Broken Flowers

Blimey. A Jim Jarmusch movie on iPlayer. I missed it when it went out so you’ve only got a couple of days to watch it. Still, it’s got to be better than Northern Irish tiger worriers. Jarmusch’s second proper movie, which was his big break, Down by Law, came out while I was (nominally) studying film and photography at Central London Poly in the mid-eighties. It made a big impact.

All my trendy friends thought it was the the best thing ever (some of them even went out and acquired elaborate quiffs) but I was suspicious. I thought it was all so much post-punk artifice. Really a phoney-baloney pseudo-existentialist non-story. I still think I’m right (tell me I’m not right). But Jarmusch has mellowed and now there’s real human stuff going on in his movies—albeit muted and kind of awkward.

I really enjoyed Broken Flowers (which came out in 2005) but I’m not 100% sure it’s not Bill Murray I’m enjoying. He’s got a real melancholy grandeur. About half-an-hour in, not long after his latest girlfriend has left him, he sits alone in his impeccably art-directed living room and tries to drink a glass of Champagne but just can’t. It’s beautiful. Anyway, I’d better shut up and save this post otherwise you’ll have no time to watch the thing. Over and out.