Stranger Than Paradise

There's something very American about (STRANGER THAN PARADISE) and yet formally it's not traditional at all. That comes from the way I write, which is backwards. Rather than finding a story that I want to tell and then adding the details, I collect the details and then try to construct a puzzle or a story." -- Jim Jarmusch, 1985

The second film by the great American director, the one that brought him fame is his tribute to every valuable aspect of the old Hollywood films. Each scene ends with almost Chaplinesque style fade out to make room for the new one that will easily fade in, the film is shot in black and white, paying respects to the innocent humour of the American films around World War II. Willie (John Lurie) is a poor New Yorker that gets visited by his cousin Eva from Hungary. At the beginning, he teaches her all the American 'values', from TV dinner, over anglicising his name, not accepting to be called the Hungarian version, to the blues music and wasting his life. This part of the film, entitled "The New World" has boredom as the main topic, cigarettes are smoked, tv is watched, meaningless, mindless discussions are spoken. At the end of this part, Eva moves to her grandmother's place in Cleveland, and Willie stays with is non life in New York.

Second part, with something of a title is called "One Year Later" and after a fade in Willie and his best friend Eddie go to Cleveland for a vacation, paid for by hustling at a card game, Jarmusch leaves camera just long enough for us to realize that the trip that they were making is another reflection of their lives, purest boredom. As they arrive in Cleveland, the storytelling depicts the details that would make Jarmusch great, his innocent, sweet humour, his love for the last of the black and white masterpieces of cinematography, the two settle at the grandmother's house and go looking for Eva who has lost her accent in the meantime and became a true American while Willie is now facing an identity crisis. They decide that this vacation is as dull as their life and go to the real one, to Florida and the third part begins.

"Paradise" is also a relatively slow but still enough interesting to follow the lives of the characters to a conclusion, it is filled with typical Jarmusch humour, very visual, sweet, gentle and never attacking you. This film symbolizes the beginning of a great artist, although

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