I'd been looking forward to the latest
Jim Jarmusch movie ever since, well, when it opened at
Cannes last year.
Every one of his films has been an experience of viewing pleasure. I fall into the story, the vision, the movement, the interaction. They accomplish more than I can ask for in a movie.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, did not disappoint. The hype, the looking forward, is so dangerous: if you are looking forward to something so much, chances are it won't be what you are after. This had all the previous pleasures of Jarmusch films: texture of the background, an outstanding soundtrack that is sewn into the film, a story that doesn't matter if you know or don't know what's coming up, a fluid editing of scenes, and the actors given performances that can break the heart or let the grin grow wider.
So the main character, Ghost Dog, is played by Forest Whittaker, who always seems the same in each movie, but makes that same character an Everyman so laidback that you've known him all your life. (It's too bad about his directing career. I mean, Hope Floats? I didn't see it, but i knew while watching the trailer the only entertainment I'd get from it was laughing at how awful it looked. C'mon? Hope Floats? so does soap and excrement )
Anyway, Ghost Dog has a best friend, a Haitian with an ice cream truck (the ice cream truck music is all screwed up, whoopty blaring circus rundown battery droop), and there's a running gag with them being best friends, but one only speaks english, and the other only speaks french, but they can still have a conversation, even though they are often repeating what the other one has said a moment before. Yes, it's a one joke wonder that repeats itself into the ground, but Every Time, i just couldn't help sniggering through it all. It was easy, it was cool, it was a movie, but real. I left the theatre just feeling so cool. Exactly what I wanted from a Jarmusch movie.