Jim Jarmusch's first independent feature starts off as a semi-jazzy riff on Charlie Parker with its visual look of urban decay in the Lower East Side of New York. It starts off so well, so in tune with the ennui of finding yourself as its main character drifts through the city seemingly from one street to the next that I was hooked. And, slowly but surely, I became unhooked.
Jarmusch's loner character is Allie Parker (Chris Parker), a young man fixated on Charlie Parker and nothing else. He looks like a Beatnik from the 1950's and looks adrift in the New York of late 70's. His opening voiceover narration suggests a guy who likes a new environment, specifically rooms, and then gets so used to it that dread eventually sets in. That's it, that's the revelation he makes about himself other than naming his possible future child after Charlie Parker. He lives with his sourpuss of a girlfriend (Leila Gastil) who sits by the window of her tenement building, smokes and has nothing much to say. Neither does Allie who plays jazz on her radio cassette player and dances. Allie has no interests and nothing to do - he is parading in a world where there is nothing to be excited by nor are there any interesting prospects. He refuses to work or to sleep, and has no interest in being confined to any single place. I would think the electricity of New York City would be enough to keep anyone motivated to do...something of interest. Not for Allie who visits his institutionalized mother, and peruses his former home that looks like it has been bombed out (he claims the Chinese bombed it) and finds some guy living there who thinks a war is raging outside of this condemned former home. For any sense of excitement, Allie steals a car and sells it for 800 dollars so he can leave New York in a ferry. Wow, just wow.
Director Jim Jarmusch has dealt with ennui brilliantly in other films like "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Down By Law," largely due to offbeat characters whom he gave ample breathing room. Here, there is Allie and he's the least interesting Jarmusch character I've ever witnessed. Granted this was Jarmusch's first feature made on a shoestring but even the people Allie runs into don't hold much interest (John Lurie appears and plays the sax, and that's about it). There is nothing to gravitate to, nothing to chew on, and the ennui simply becomes tiresome. For Jarmusch fans, it is worth checking out but anyone else will simply be bored out of their skulls.
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