Reflections on "Only Lovers Left Alive"

The Earth has spun again, and I am no longer waiting for the summertime. The summer is upon us.

The temporary job that I referenced in my last post has turned out to be not so temporary. I've moved up in the company, which is mos' defs a good thing. I'm in the same greater city-area in which I grew up, and I have two roommates, and a job, and two organizations (I'm defining "organization" very loosely) that I'm volunteering for and am active in my church congregation. It's like I'm a real person.

Over the weekend, I saw with my roommate "Only Lovers Left Alive," a Jim Jarmusch film with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and the White Queen from Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Tilda Swinton). This is a necessary film, because it is not a film about beginnings or endings, but a film about middles.

Imagine: Tom Hiddleston (Adam) and Tilda Swinton (Eve) are a married vampire couple who live on separate continents: Adam is in Detroit, Eve is in Tangiers. Adam and Eve don't just live apart, they conduct their lives separately: Eve will go out during the night and visit her friend Christopher Marlowe. Adam is a recluse who makes music, and whose only connection to the outside world is through his wife and a young deadbeat ("zombie," as the vampires call humans) named Ian, who acts like a personal assistant-agent. Like the antiquated records Adam listens to, their lives continue to spin slowly about, dizzingly, nauseatingly, like a children's ride that you can't get off of. They are vampires, and they do not die.

Eve realizes Adam is morose, so she comes to visit him. When she arrives, there is a tender moment reminiscent of the sixteenth century where he invites her into his house, then gently removes her gloves. (They are old vampires, after all.) She says that he has been wasting time, and that there needs to be more dancing. She puts on a record, sashays over to him, and takes his hand. He cracks the slightest of smiles and lumbers up. And they start to dance. As simple and sweet as that.

One of the most striking scenes is of Adam and Eve playing chess in their bathrobes, licking at blood popsicles. It's early night and they've just woken up; their hair is unkempt, as it is through most of the movie. Adam concentrates on his next move, while Eve chats about her blood popsicle and her existence and experience. Adam tries to focus, but he can't help but be drawn out by his wife's conversation. Two moves later, she checkmates him, then stalks off to change, mentioning that she's a survivor.

Who does this??? When in life does this happen? Constantly. Certainly, this is not the hormone-inflamed infatuation of youth touted so much in contemporary romantic comedies, but a deep resonating love that is the middle of the story. Where you're so accustomed to the other's existence that they are an extension and expansion of your own existence. Where you can merely sit side by side and listen contently to music.

It's a sleepy, beautiful, slow film. I can't get away from it, its sleepiness and honesty. Even amidst a game of chess and dancing, it lacked some of the specificity of detail that makes life rich - such as the "I love you" spray-painted onto the concrete along one of my running routes, or understanding that a certain glance means you're going to go outside and roll around on the grass like a hedgehog.

But it was arresting, contemplative, haunting.

In another six months, I'll be ready to see it again.