Paterson

                    

I savored Jim Jarmusch's Paterson like a nice sorbet, but found it a bit slight. It is more a meditation on the poetry to be found in everyday existence than a traditional narrative film. We follow Adam Driver as the titular character, a poetry writing bus driver in New Jersey, as he goes about his daily routine. He drives his bus, walks his dog, canoodles with his wife and chats with his friends at a bar. There are a few incidents, but, on the whole, not much happens to our hero. What is Jarmusch's locus of concern are the poetic reveries contained in the seemingly mundane details of life that spark the poet's imagination.

Jarmusch's collaborators are instrumental in bringing forth this theme: the cast is winning, Frederick Elmes' cinematography is subtly beautiful, and the costume and set design are just so. If there is a fault in Jarmusch's schema it is that the character of the wife and her endeavors are overly precious. Also, Jarmusch is self indulgent in picturing his obsessions. There is a wall of heroes in the bar, much like the one in Only Lovers Left Alive, that a black bartender adds a picture of Iggy Pop, subject of a recent Jarmusch documentary, to. A bit of a stretch, I think.

The theme of doubling seems a bit tacked on. Paterson the character lives in Paterson the town, home to the poet William Carlos Williams whose work is echoed by the poems Ron Padgett provides to the film. There are at least three sets of twins pictured during the course of the film. Jarmusch, as earlier in his career, flirts with cutesy knowingness. That said, I found the contemplative quality of Paterson to be a balm to the soul in a cinematic landscape littered with CGI carnage. (4/14/17)