Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 2, 1990 TAG: 9006020147
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
We're in Jim Jarmusch territory here, which should clue potential viewers to how well they'll connect with the movie.
Jarmusch made "Stranger than Paradise" and "Down By Law," intensely hip deadpan comedies about losers who don't seem to connect with much outside of movement from place to place. Jarmusch's characters are on the road, on the run or on a pilgrimage.
While John Waters celebrates the outrageously tasteless, Jarmusch appreciates the realistically seedy. He's a sly filmmaker so low-key that those who don't beam into his wavelength will no doubt find his movies unbearably slow-moving.
Others - and I count myself among them - will contentedly settle in for the ride.
"Mystery Train" is actually a night in the life of three sets of people who find themselves at the shabby Arcade Hotel in Memphis. There's no TV in the rooms, but each comes equipped with a bad oil painting of Elvis. Old-time rocker Screamin' Jay Hawkins plays the desk clerk and former R&B star Rufus Thomas makes a cameo appearance, no doubt Jarmusch's tribute to this venerable soul city.
The first visitors to the hotel are a young Japanese couple making the rounds of shrines to '50s American rock. Youki Kudoh plays the girl, all giddy enthusiasm for her idol, Elvis. The seedy outskirts of Memphis are a wonderland to her. Masatoshi Nagase plays Jun, the boyfriend. With slicked-back hair, spit polished shoes and a cigarette behind his ear, Jun is preoccupied with trying to be cool. He endlessly tells his girl that rockabilly icon Carl Perkins - which Jun pronounces Perkinson - is better than Elvis, all the while keeping his own enthusiasm in check lest he blow his cool.
The second visitors are Luisa and Dee Dee. Played with an engaging generosity of spirit by Nicoletta Braschi, Luisa is an Italian woman escorting the body of her husband back to Rome when airport problems strand her in Memphis overnight. Dee Dee (Elizabeth Bracco) is a destitute chatter box on the run from her boyfriend. Luisa, out of kindness, invites her to share a room. Fresh from a scary encounter with a con man who tells her an urban legend about the ghost of Elvis hitch-hiking on the freeway, Luisa is visited by an apparition that keeps her wide-eyed and awake all night.
The last bunch is a trio of blue collar guys on the run from the law an incident involving too much liquor, too many disappointments and a gun. The main culprit (Joe Strummer) is an angry Englishman nicknamed Elvis because of his hair style. He's the guy Dee Dee is fleeing but neither is aware of the other's presence in the hotel.
At some point, the picture begins to feel like a minimalist version of Robert Altman's "Nashville." The characters spin off of each in a legendary music city while a mysterious presence - Elvis here in place of the motorcyclist played by Jeff Goldblum in Altman's movie - serves as a mystical reference point.
"Mystery Train" has both director Jarmusch's street-smart whimsy and his trademark lethargic pacing so approach it accordingly. `Mystery Train' An Orion release at the Grandin Theatre (345-6177). Unrated but the language, violence and sexual content seem on a level with most R-rated movies. An hour and 50 minutes.
by CNB