Jim Jarmusch’s fourth feature tells three stories of foreigners in the heart of America.
Mystery Train comprises three novellas about people who end up in Memphis, the city where Elvis Presley lived and died, on the same day. Far From Yokohama is about a pair of Japanese teenagers making a pilgrimage to places associated with their musical heroes, Elvis and Carl Perkins. The second story is about Luisa, an Italian woman who has come to America to collect the body of her dead husband, but her return flight is delayed and she ends up stuck in the city. The third novella is about an unfortunate British man who was dumped by his girlfriend and lost his job. He is trying to find some consolation in the company of a couple of friends.
These odd people meet in one place and each of them is affected in their own way by the myth of America. They seek evidence of its greatness and of dead idols, meet with con artists from O’Henry’s short stories, and experience the dramatic discrepancy between the white and black populations. This gloomy backwater and the cult of Elvis, whose name is a constant among the population of Memphis and has taken over the States since the death of the king of rock and roll, could have been the subject of a sharp satire. However, as the American film critic Roger Ebert noted, Jarmusch looks at this context with the eyes of a romantic and a foreigner. In the space of nostalgia for the already non-existent America of the 1950s, the young Japanese people walk the dirty streets and wastelands full of joy that at the age of 18 they are not in Yokohama but in the America of their dreams and fantasies. The serious Italian woman Carla experiences a miracle that draws her in to the myth of Elvis, and the life of the unfortunate British man Johnny is transformed into an alternative western, with shoot-outs, chases, and a fight for a friend’s honor. These curious characters traveling across the States reference another great foreigner who loves America, Wim Wenders. Jarmusch brought in Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller, who worked on Wenders’ cult road movies Alice in the Cities and Paris, Texas, in which America is the central character.
The premiere of Mystery Train took place in the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival in 1989, where it won the Best Artistic Achievement award.
The film will be screened in English, Japanese, and Italian with Russian subtitles.
Mystery Train
Director Jim Jarmusch
USA, Japan, 1989, 110 min.
18+