Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1153841
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 AUGUST 2019 FILM FILM VAMPIRES and zombies are destined to remain pop culture mainstays for generations to come. That is, unless the climate change crisis so astutely com- mented upon in writer-director Jim Jarmusch's latest effort, The Dead Don't Die, doesn't alter our cultural landscape beyond rec- ognition and forces us into more novel modes of folksy artistic ex- pression. Such world-weariness is cer- tainly a recurring motif in Jar- musch's take on the shambling undead genre, The Dead Don't Die, in which the fictional Amer- ican suburb of Centreville ("A Real Nice Place") is suddenly assailed by its dead, a resurrec- tion enabled by continued po- lar fracking which is leading the world to quite literally spin on its axis. At the centre of the storm are police chief Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) and his officers Ronald 'Ronnie' Peterson (Adam Driver) and Minerva 'Mindy' Morrison (Chloë Sevigny), who discover that something is not quite right after they get a call from the lo- cal racist farmer Miller (Steve Buscemi, sporting a 'Keep Amer- ica White Again' cap) and notice that it's still daylight after 8pm. Soon, even mobile phones stop working, and when the local diner is marked by two disem- boweled corpses, officer Peter- son comes to the only plausible interpretation of the matter: "I'm thinkin' zombies!". Yes, Jarmusch is out to have some fun at the zombie genre's expense, and the all-star cast (Iggy Pop is happy to gurn word- lessly along as a member of the freshly undead) are keen to play along. Among the Jarmusch regular one finds Tilda Swinton, having even more of a blast than usual as Centerville's most curi- ous new arrival: a Scottish ninja undertaker. This kind of absurd character-collage oddly matches the box-ticking pile-up of fantasy tropes that B-movies favour, and with his ragged spoof Jarmusch actually manages to transmit some of that same mad energy, albeit an entirely ironic, 'hip- ster' lens (hipster irony is also spoofed, by the way). Jarmusch's utter disregard for standard Hollywood story struc- ture also means that his shifts in tone and narrative tempo don't feel like unwelcome irrup- tions; they are par for the course. Which makes room for some le- gitimately poignant moments to slip in. There is an earnest appeal towards climate change aware- ness, through which Jarmusch is quick to remind us of how horror and other 'subaltern' genres were always handy vehicles to explore contemporary mores, whether this was deliberate on the film- makers' part or discovered after the fact by keen-eyed critics and cultural historians. But the spiritual dimension of Jarmusch's work is also in evidence here – a fixture of the 70s, the director basks in the af- terglow of the embers left over by the buddha-courting flower power generation – and it is largely delivered through anoth- er Jarmusch regular, Bill Murray. He's the frayed zen master here, and where that isn't played for exasperated laughs, it allows for pathos, as when the beleaguered police chief spots resurrected children amidst the zombie hordes assailing Centreville. Yes, it's certainly a minor Jar- musch on every count, even when compared to the auteur's most recent efforts. Adam Driver's presence evokes an unwelcome comparison to Paterson (2016), a beautiful and quietly heart- felt love letter to the mundane churn of life, one that eschews overbearing self-referentiality in favour of indulging in what the Caleb Landry Jones character is told by Wu-Tang Clan's RZA in the picture under consideration: "The world is perfect. Appreciate the details". Neither is it the best of the director's stabs at the hor- ror genre, with Tilda Swinton- starring Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) offering a more keenly understood take on the vampire genre and what makes it tick. Still, in its devil-may-care col- lage of references, held together by deadpan jokes skewed towards the deliberately lame and quirky- but-flat characters awaiting to be summarily dispatched only to be resurrected as hollow, shambling versions of themselves, the feel of The Dead Don't Die ends up be- ing an even more truthful tribute to its pulpy forebears than some its slicker contemporary coun- terparts. Not for Jarmusch the high- budget, melodramatic trappings of The Walking Dead, but nei- ther is he interested in the kind of hi-octane 'zom-com' spoof of the kind popularised by Shaun of the Dead (2004). Instead, Jarmusch delivers the kind of scruffy pick- and-mix flick whose punky spirit is far more in line – aesthetically, culturally, economically – with the George Romero originals that have defined the zombie genre throughout history and which are, of course, explicitly referenced over and over again, popping up to reminds us that what we're watching is for the most part a repetition. A zombie gag, but at least we're all in on the joke. Cult filmmaker Jim Jarmusch does not quite scale career-best heights with this smug, post-modern take on the zombie genre, but there's more than enough charm to get it past the finish line in style THE DEAD DON'T DIE DEATH BE NOT PROUD AYE, BUT TO DIE DEAD ZONE FLATLINE ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The verdict Smug to a fault and propping itself up on deadpan jokes that are droll even by the usual Jim Jarmusch standards, The Dead Don't Die still manages to pull off a charming twist on the over-tired zombie genre, working in an astute climate change allegory into the pro- ceedings and obliquely re- creating the gritty, grimy and offbeat feel of a genuine mid- night movie. The Dead Don't Die will be screening at Spazju Kreattiv Cinema tonight and August 15, 17 and 22 at 8.30pm Teodor Reljic ★ ★ ★ T H E D E A D D O N ' T D I E ( 15 ) Bill Murray, Chloë Sevigny and Adam Driver face the suburban undead of Centreville in Jim Jarmusch's latest comedy Digging up the dead... once again