“The dead don’t die”: phlegmatic inevitability
Jim Jarmusch in General in love with zombies was not particularly noticed: Yes, he mentioned them in his previous creation, “only lovers will Survive”, but few people expected a film in the genre of zombie horror from him. As a result, zombie horror, however, did not work: “the Dead do not die” (The Dead Don’t Die) is a viscous, melancholic story with a handful of humor and sad morality, which tries to laugh at the declared genre.
The plot is familiar: there was a global Apocalypse, the world began to change and the dead climbed out of the ground. And the viewer is shown how a tiny American town with a population of just over 700 people copes with such an invasion. Civilization-it is somewhere out there, far away, but the problems with the dead inhabitants are extremely local.At first, the film is somewhat reminiscent of “a Zombie named Sean” with a slightly muted and twisted otherwise comedic component.
In the first half there were moments, jokes, some small details that made the film look more like the creation of Edgar Wright rather than Jarmusch — Yes, a little slower, but still primarily comedic. But at some point in the ears began to break melancholic soundtrack from SQÜRL, under which the eyes flashed gaining anxiety landscapes, climbed out of the grave Iggy Pop, practiced with a katana Tilda Swinton — and it became clear that this Comedy is abundantly watered with bitterness.From the beginning, Adam Driver’s character, one of the police officers, says that everything that happens will not end well, and repeats this phrase word for word several times throughout the story. Bill Murray, who played his boss, tries to calmly pull him back, but soon he can not stand the pressure of what is happening. Chloe sevigny, their colleague is not very ready for the invasion of zombies and copes with stress with the help of screams.
Other characters are also the most comical — here and recent owner of a cafe in the person of Esther Balint, familiar from the “Three billboards” Caleb Landry Jones as a bit stand-offish Golovatogo seller in the sundries shop at the gas station that require wise counsel from the courier in the performance of the rapper RZA, and nationalistic farmer with the face of Steve Buscemi, and overgrown hermit Tom waits, who took in this slow Apocalypse nesmeshivaemost the position of the observer, and, of course, absolutely ethereal Tilda Swinton, has mastered iaido. All this hypertrophied in its one-dimensionality set of characters, pale, simple-it perfectly reflects the fading of the American Outback, making the film a little more monotonous, and unexpected bursts of jokes and successful moves become more vivid against the background of this oatmeal.
And the beauty of jokes just lies in their inelegance, in their clumsiness. They are served in the forehead, some special Outlook in order to smile, do not need — Jarmusch does not seem to want to be in the process of viewing his film as something much thought. It simply tells the story of how a tiny town fought an invasion of zombies. Not very effectively fought, if honestly, only constantly repeating, as mantra, that zombies need to beat in head — and instead blood from neobrabotayuschikh already arteries of the dead was bursting out black dust.
In this zombie Apocalypse there is no enthusiasm, there is no dexterity, there is no any feeling motivating on feats of fight. There is weariness, indifference, even resignation, imbued with sadness. There is no horror. No fear. Nothing. And from this, in General, the zombie Apocalypse shown in the film looks even more frightening than its classic versions, filled with screamers, growls, fountains of blood splashing around, hot speeches of the main characters about saving humanity or at least a small group of people, some hope. In Jarmusch’s picture, the characters don’t care. But it’s meant to be.Zombies in the film hunt not only for food in the form of fresh human meat, but also for those things that attracted them in life. Someone is looking for Wi-Fi, someone is trying to kick a ball on the football field, someone wants to get to candy, wine or coffee. Jarmusch tells us head-on that we, blinded by our materialistic desires, even in life turned into zombies, changing the impulses of the soul to the desires of the body. And, most surprisingly, the answer to the question of what to do with it, he does not give.
In the current Jarmusch very acutely visible is the desire to stand on a stool in a white coat beautifully and convey to the world that everyone but him is living wrong. And despite Jarmusch’s poetry and otherness, which he did not get rid of even in this picture, his statements are more like not the most sober conversation at four o’clock in the morning in the kitchen. When promises are made to go to the gym, change jobs, start sorting garbage, stop buying t-shirts, quit a toxic partner — and after a drunken restless sleep, all promises are forgotten.And Jarmusch seems perfectly aware that his picture will not prompt anyone to really think deeply about his life, about what is happening around him. And he reflects it in the final, which at first discourages simplicity, and after all a little, but pleases. The main taste of this film is bitter irony, all this atmosphere of inevitability and inevitability, which can be accepted, perhaps, only with a phlegmatic shrug of the shoulders.
