Mystery Train- A Multi-Strand Narrative

This week in Contemporary Cinema we watched the film Mystery Train by Jim Jarmusch.  Having never watched a film by Jarmusch, I did not know what to expect from this movie and was not familiar with his style.  To be completely honest, when I heard the name of this movie, I was scared it was going to be a bit like Harmony Korine’s bizarre film Julien Donkey Boy. (Thankfully it was not as grotesque, but it still encompassed similar-but not equal- emphasis on the main characters)  To my surprise I actually enjoyed the movie and was able to understand the filmmaker’s artistic point of view and was able to appreciate the movie because of this.  This movie was different from many of the movies I have ever seen because the film maker chooses to use different form of narrative that is more complex than a typical Hollywood narrative.  Jarmusch uses a multi-strand narrative plot line which shows us the same period of time through viewpoints that are different yet intertwined.

                This film is separated into three different parts, and uses three completely different groups of people.  In the first part “Far from Yokohono” it follows two Japanese tourists Jun and Mitzuko travel to Memphis  on their quest to visit Graceland and all of the Elvis related landmarks.  They stop at a hotel for the night, and end up making love, when they finish they fall asleep listening to the radio; the radio host says that it is 2:15 a.m. and the song “Blue Moon” by Elvis begins to play.  The next day as the couple leaves the hotel they hear a gunshot, which they disregard.  

Between each of the scenes there is dialogue between the bell boy and the owner of the hotel, along with a warning about a group of armed robbers and that it was 2:15 a.m. and the song “Blue Moon” by Elvis Presley played.  This same sequence is replayed again and again until the end of the story.

In the Second part of the film entitled “Ghost” a young woman named Louisa who is recently widowed is accompanying her husband’s corpse back to Italy but their travel is halted when the plane is grounded until the next morning, she wanders the town in search of a place to sleep she finds a hotel and plans to rent a room for the night.  As Louisa walks in she trips over a woman named Dee Dee who is stumbling out of the hotel arguing with the man at the front desk, who tells her that she does not have enough money to rent a room for the night.  Dee Dee recently left her boyfriend and sought out the hotel to rest in until she boards a train leaving town the next morning.  After hearing this Lousia decides to pay for the room and share it with Dee Dee.   As the night progresses and the girls decide to go to bed the two women hear noises coming from the next room (we are lead to assume that it is the love-making sounds from Japanese couple in the next room), Dee Dee decides to turns the radio and the radio host tells them that it is 2:15 a.m. and the song “Blue Moon” by Elvis Presley begins to play.  As the song ends Louisa believes that the ghost of Elvis Presley has visited her, terrified she stays up for the remainder of the night.  The next day as they are preparing to leave, the two girls hear a gunshot and disregard it, just like the Japanese couple.

In the third part “Lost in Space” Johnny (Dee Dee’s ex-boyfriend, who is nicknamed Elvis), Charlie (Dee Dee’s brother), and Will ( Johnny’s best friend) become entangled in a murder committed by Johnny to get free alcohol.  The group of men ride around town until they find the hotel and beg the owner, Will’s brother-in-law, to let them stay the night for free.  The owner reluctantly accepts and the men go upstairs and find a picture of Elvis hanging on the wall, Johnny turns it around and the guys begin talking, they look for a radio to turn on but there is no radio in the room.  They end up falling asleep and the next morning before they leave, Johnny puts the gun to his head in attempt to kill himself, Charlie tries to take the gun away from him and Johnny ends up shooting Charlie in the leg.  The hotel manager sends the bell boy up to their room to see what is going on.  And that is when we realize that the gunshot that the Japanese couple and the two women heard was the shot fired from the men in part three of the film.

As you can see, this film had a lot of repetition, which to some people can be seen as annoying, but without the repetition of parts you would not be able to see how the multiple-strand narrative came together (temporal overlap).  These scenes were not connected by obvious factors, in order to understand how the story fit together you need to pay attention to the details.  I feel that because the filmmaker chose to present the information in this manner it keeps the audience interested and anxious to finally understand the connection to the three different stories. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this film, it was put together in such an interesting way that it kept me attentive throughout the whole movie.  I really liked that the plot line wasn’t predictable, which really added to the film’s mysteriousness.  One thing I didn’t understand though is the title,( I wish I did!) it would only make this film that much more awesome in my book , maybe I overlooked it? Oh, well! It was still a great movie!