Mystery Train
Dir: Jim Jarmusch
1989
*****
Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train consists of three stories, each one interweaving with one another with the Arcade Hotel being the focus location. It stars an eclectic international cast including several musicians including the brilliant and sorely missed Joe Strummer and the fantastic Screamin' Jay Hawkins as well as Elizabeth Bracco and Steve Buscemi. As you'd expect from a Jarmusch film about music, it has a killer soundtrack. The first story is called "Far From Yokohama" and features a young teenage couple on a musical pilgrimage to Memphis, their hero being Elvis. Elvis's Ghost appears in the second story, "A Ghost", and is witnessed by Luisa who is stranded in Memphis while escorting her deceased husband back to Italy for burial and her unintentional room-mate Dee-Dee who has just escaped a love-less relationship with johnny whom we see in the final story. "Lost in Space" sees Johnny (nicknamed Elvis) and two friends get drunk and rob a liquor store with a handgun. They hide out in the Arcade Hotel and spend the night talking and drinking. A picture of Elvis is hung in each of the Hotel rooms and singer links each of the stories in one way or another. The stories don't really mean anything, much like Jarmusch's other films, it's all about the characters and the brilliant dialogue. It's hard not to think of Quentin Tarantino's Four Rooms and True Romance when watching this film, the influence on his works is obvious and I'm surprised lawyers haven't been called, although that isn't really Jarmusch's style. Mystery Train is a brilliant independent film, Night on Earth's elder brother, an inspiration to many a great film and a continuation of John Cassavetes'Cinéma vérité, in the year he died.