‘Only Lovers Left Alive’

“Only Lovers Left Alive” is the eleventh film from Jim Jarmusch (“Broken Flowers,” “Coffee and Cigarettes”), and this time he takes on the vampire genre, blending it with his own strange, idiosyncratic, minimalistic style, and delivering a stylish and poetic interpretation of the vampire myth. The elements are familiar, but what he does with them is unlike anything we may have seen before on screen.

To start, these vampires are not snarling creatures of the night, nor are they sparkling boy-toys with perfectly coiffed hair and painfully tepid, soap opera dialogue (*cough*”Twilight”*cough*). Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) have lived and loved each other for centuries. When the film opens, they are living an ocean apart. Eve lives in Morocco and spends her time reading, dancing to music in her apartment and hanging out with her blood supplier, another vampire named Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt).

Marlowe was a late-16th century playwright and poet who greatly influenced “that illiterate zombie philistine” Shakespeare — Marlowe’s words in the film, not mine.

Adam lives in a rundown house in Detroit where he spends his time recording music on antique music equipment, which he purchases from fellow music-head Ian (Anton Yelchin), and mourning humanity, which he considers to be doomed. He refers to humans as “zombies,” has a wall of literary and musical heroes, and gets his blood from a blood bank contact codenamed Dr. Watson (Jeffrey Wright).

As with previous Jarmusch films, “Only Lovers Left Alive” is less narrative driven than it is character driven. It’s more mood than plot. Adam and Even decide early on to reunite for a spell, and a few story threads are woven from their reunion, including an unwelcome visit from immature, fanged moocher Ava (Mia Wasikowska), that leads the lovers into a long, troubled night of nightclubbing and body disposal.

But for the most part, the film is a relaxed, intimate meditation on the probable boredom and exhaustion of (nearly) eternal life. It’s a slice of life portrait that captures a few days in the life of the undying, as they comfort each other, argue about the downfall of civilization, discuss art and music, and experience the highs of blood drinking and the lows of withdrawal once their plasma sources start to run dry.

Pitch perfect performances all around, sharp writing and direction from Jarmusch, brilliant cinematography by Yorick Le Saux (“Julia,” “I Am Love”) and stunning psychedelic music by SQÜRL allow the film to feel whole, like a complete experience.

Something that all of the best “vampire movies” have in common is this: Even if you take away the supernatural element, they still manage to communicate to us an involving, identifiable story. Jarmusch essentially uses it as a device to explore how people deal with fairly universal problems, internal and external concerns with which most of us can identify.  “Only Lovers Left Alive,” like Tomas Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In” and Kathryn Bigelow’s  “Near Dark,” works on that level exactly. Jarmusch has crafted a clever, introspective new entry to a genre that has, in recent years, taken on far too much dead weight (*cough*”Twilight”*cough*).

★★★1/2 (out of four)

‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’

A re-telling of Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s writings, wrapped inside of a vibrant, colorful homage to a wide array of classic films, particularly early screwball comedies of the 1930s and ‘40s, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is the funniest movie I’ve seen this year, and easily the most assured, fully realized and entertaining work writer/director Wes Anderson (“The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Moonrise Kingdom”) has done.

Highly stylized and charming to no end, the film is framed within multiple time periods. Anderson first shows us the eponymous hotel long past its prime (the 1960s), when a writer (Jude Law) visits it and meets the owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). Mustapha offers to tell the writer the story of his involvement with the Grand Budapest in its prime (the 1930s), when Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) ran the elegant, prominent hotel as its concierge.

Mustapha’s story to the writer makes up the core of the film. Young Zero (Tony Revolori) begins at the hotel as a lobby boy under the tutelage of M. Gustave H., whose affairs with wealthy elderly women lead him directly into the murder investigation of one of his former lovers, Madame Céline Villeneuve Desgoffe und Taxis (Tilda Swinton) — Madame C.V.D.u.T. for short. Madame D. for shorter.

The investigation of her murder under mysterious circumstances allows Anderson to roll out a truly impressive ensemble cast of actors, most of whom have become Anderson regulars through the years. There’s Madame D’s moustache-twirling evil son, Dmitri (Adrian Brody), her estate attorney, Deputy Kovaks (Jeff Goldblum), a young pastry chef named Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), a benevolent police inspector (Edward Norton) and a not-so-benevolent assassin (Willem Dafoe).

Too deep a description of the story is an exercise in futility, as it would do the film an injustice. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” must be experienced. It must be seen and heard, felt and tasted. It engages all of the senses and rewards multiple viewings.

From his frequent use of miniatures to the exaggerated yet nuanced behavior of his characters, Anderson’s films exude an air of self-aware artificiality and playacting, and when familiar faces continue to pop up, it feels like a nudge and a wink every time.

But this should not suggest a lack of humanity within the playful fantasy of Anderson’s world. Like many of the most interesting filmmakers working today, he tells stories that possess the power to enrich our perspective of the world. While immersed in his reality, we are able to better understand our own, and with “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” he has opened yet another window through which we can gaze in wonder.

★★★★ (out of four)