MYSTERY TRAIN (1989)

An old, rundown hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis Presley’s “Blue Moon” plays on radios on pitch-black nights, with the low, constant hum of cicadas providing a chorus. And in the early hours of the morning, a gunshot rings out, obliterating the silence of this dilapidated hotel in a sleepy neighbourhood.

This song and that bullet also connect seven people: though they’ll never know it, separated by the thin walls of that Memphis flophouse, fate brought them all under the same roof for one night of singular strangeness. And the very next morning, it will lead them down different paths again.

Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train is one of his many great anthology films, all of which have both amusing and enigmatic qualities to them. Be it Night on Earth (1991), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), or this forgotten indie classic, Jarmusch’s keen interest in the meandering, aimless nature of life finds its greatest expression when plotted in these muted vignettes. With each instalment connected by only the barest of causal links, a repeated line of dialogue, a specific setting, a particular scenario, or merely a theme, these isolated tales become more than just a sum of their parts.

With Mystery Train being one of his best works (as well as one of his most underrated), it should come as no surprise that it’s still a joy to watch 35 years later: since the first time I stumbled across this gem years ago, it’s remained just as oddly funny, just as uncommonly affecting, and much like the title suggests, just as quaintly mysterious. This story reveals people at critical moments in their lives: first adventures, profound losses, and dramatic shifts that result in personal crises and unfortunate predicaments.

Of course, these massive changes experienced by our main characters are never excavated through lengthy monologues. In fact, the issues that plague their interior landscapes are rarely (if ever) discussed at all; the conflicts that arise in each short story simmer underneath the surface, providing the minimum amount of tension for the narrative to remain captivating, yet never becoming unrealistic.

However, it’s worthwhile to differentiate between Jarmusch’s minimalist narratives and naturalism: while he certainly incorporates a simplistic style, his films never quite tend towards realism. They appear to balance perfectly between absurdism and verisimilitude; these plots are never quite true to life, yet they still feel possible, as though this story could happen on a particularly peculiar night in Memphis.

Part of the reason why Mystery Train makes terrific (and surprisingly riveting) use of dead time: this darkly comical confluence of circumstances is never as theatrical as in the likes of Pulp Fiction (1994) or Snatch (2000), so each scene becomes familiar in its quiet stillness. Sparse and unadorned dialogue ensures that encounters remain believable, even when a ghost appears in a bedroom, or a gun is unexpectedly drawn from someone’s belt.

Mystery Train may just be the best example of Jarmusch’s specific dead time: it’s not as loopy or tedious as in Stranger Than Paradise (1984), nor is it as wacky or fraught with forced conflict, as in Down by Law (1986). Here, we are simply watching people live out an extraordinary moment in their lives in an ordinary fashion. The result is quietly sublime— and often rather amusing.

Indeed, it’s Jarmusch’s humour that elevates this film from ever feeling uninspired. Sequences that take place at the reception desk between Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Cinqué Lee provide entertaining asides in each episode, be it Lee swatting a plastic bug, or Hawkins’ stealing Lee’s plum (which he received as a tip, much to his annoyance).

And there are other random asides that Jarmusch has included, such as a patron at Charlie’s (Steve Buscemi) barbershop, who’s confused about the prevalence of macaroni cheese in China: “Wouldn’t that seem odd, what with all the Chinese food they got over there?”

If for no other reason, Mystery Train is impressive in how it demonstrates narrative direction is superfluous to achieving the audience’s fascination. There is no momentum in this story, yet it doesn’t become uninteresting. Jarmusch is capable of luxuriating in the mundane without ever turning his film into something monotonous.

This is partly due to the story structure, which ensures we never spend too long or too brief a period with our protagonists. And it’s also due to an element of mystery, which Jarmusch injects into the story after around half an hour: that loud blast that emerges from another room. It’s Chekhov’s gunshot—when will that sound insert itself into the narrative?

Jarmusch also manages to capture the aching sense of young love in his first vignette, “Far from Yokohama”, with a surprising degree of sincerity. Jun (Masatoshi Nagase) and Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh), boyfriend and girlfriend travelling from Yokohama, Japan, bicker on their trip. At first, this seems almost amiable: petty squabbling over who is better, Elvis Presley or Carl Perkins.

However, a tragic solemnity falls over their relationship: Jun is disinterested in his adoring girlfriend. He’s obsessed with appearances (slicked-back hair, playing with his Zippo lighter, staring off into the distance) and seems perennially dissatisfied. It’s obvious this equanimity is contrived, the affectation of a teenager wanting to mimic the cool, suave demeanour of the music legends he deifies.

This is contrasted by Mitsuko’s unabashed enthusiasm and buoyancy, and it’s rather heartbreaking watching her attempt to placate him. Yet, the tender sequences between them are capable of returning you to those moments of immature passion that characterised first loves: sharing tobacco smoke in a loving kiss, undressing under the covers with a flirtatious smile, and pointless arguments starting and ending almost without reason. Jarmusch makes these scenes work because they are never artificial, nor exaggerated; they all seem intimately familiar.

In “A Ghost”, Nicoletta Braschi takes centre stage as a woman collecting her late husband’s corpse. She encounters a pushy magazine vendor, a talkative woman skipping town after a breakup, and an ominous character with a whimsical tale of his supernatural meeting with Elvis Presley’s ghost.

Braschi gladly becomes something of an Italian stereotype in this segment, shouting into a phone at the airport, while lending lines of dialogue a singular humour with nothing more than her thick accent: “I feel a little discombobulated.” Yet, Braschi’s performance is by no means one-note, offering pithy wisdom to her disheartened new travel companion: “Sometimes the greatest love can last only one week.”

It’s entirely subjective which vignette is the best (I prefer the first story for its assured slowness and tender sincerity), but the third instalment, Lost in Space, is undeniably the one with the most action: nihilism, despair, robbery, violence, and other hijinks unbecoming of men in their mid-thirties. It’s also arguably the funniest story of the three, with some of the slapstick and performances on display (particularly Buscemi’s in an early role) serving as a great climax to what was otherwise a slow-paced narrative.

Jarmusch’s career beginnings reveal how simple it is to capture intriguing scenarios when you have great talent in front of and behind the camera: our frame rarely ever moves. In a particularly impressive take, we watch as Mitsuko dons lipstick, covers Jun with it in an intentionally sloppy kiss, and lights his cigarette for him with her feet, all before dropping the Zippo into his shirt pocket. The shot itself is simplistically designed, but the mere fact that the camera never moves makes it engaging, rendering the motion in the shot all the more visually compelling.

Jarmusch has frequently relied on long takes to circumnavigate the limitations of budget restrictions. The protracted opening shot in Stranger Than Paradise (as well as the rest of the film’s long takes and minimalist narrative) is evidence enough of this. However, in stark contrast to his breakout film, Jarmusch’s Mystery Train never feels as though the slow, static, and methodical camerawork is linked to its independent roots. Instead, it simply feels tonally fitting; the moments of transition each character is experiencing can only be adequately depicted when the camera allows us to meditate with them.

The story is bookended by the emergence of a train, its loud, blaring whistle breaking through the silence and stillness of the early Memphis morning. The first two stories conclude as our characters walk out of their bedroom doors, leaving this chapter of their lives behind, and walking off to start another journey.

And the lives of our final three protagonists elude us as well, driving away into the city, perhaps onto another misadventure. How many stories have the walls of this hotel seen pass through it? How many romances, unlikely friendships, or drunken mishaps? Probably more than anyone knows — those personal narratives remain mysterious even to the people living them.

Where will all of these characters end up? What have they learnt from the 24 hours they experienced in that rundown hotel in Memphis, Tennessee? We can’t be sure. How they arrived here, and where they will go next, all remains a mystery, as inscrutable to them as it is to us. And the blare of that train sounds out again, beckoning the beginning of another new, magically enigmatic day.

JAPAN •  USA | 1989 | 113 MINUTES | 1.78:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH •  JAPANESE • ITALIAN

Cast & Crew

writer & director: Jim Jarmusch.
starring: Youki Kudoh, Masatoshi Nagase, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Cinqué Lee, Nicoletta Braschi, Joe Strummer, Rick Aviles & Steve Buscemi.