Director: Jim Jarmusch
Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch
Producers: Jim Jarmusch, Jim Stark
Starring: Winona Ryder, Gena Rowlands, Giancarlo Esposito, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Rosie Perez, Roberto Benigni
Year: 1991
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: 15
Duration: 129 mins

As one of the directors who introduced me to independent film, a key factor in birthing my obsessive love of cinema in general, Jim Jarmusch has long been one of my favourite directors. His hip indie aesthetic and laconic minimalism were revelatory to my younger self and I avidly sought out all his films. As the first Jarmusch film I ever saw, Night on Earth has a special place in my heart but I’ve long suspected the five stars I originally awarded it had more to do with nostalgic memories of the battered old VHS I fished out of a bargain bin of the now defunct MVC. I recently revisited Jarmusch’s earlier Down by Law courtesy of another excellent Criterion release and discovered I loved it as much as I ever did. In the case of Night on Earth, I found that my still-considerable affection for the film was tempered by a certain clunkiness that I had previously overlooked but which my memory seemed to be dimly aware I would find here.

Like Jarmusch’s previous Mystery Train (another of my favourites), Night on Earth has an anthology structure. Jarmusch’s early films often confine their characters to small spaces in order to observe their interactions more intimately: an apartment in Stranger Than Paradise, a prison cell in Down by Law, hotel rooms in Mystery Train. In the case of Night on Earth, the majority of the action takes place in five taxi cabs across five different time zones on the same night. There’s a knowing glee to Jarmusch’s conceit of creating a film that travels the globe but traps the characters in the smallest spaces the director had yet worked with. Still, while the human drama unfolds in cramped automobiles, Jarmusch presents regular atmospheric shots of the taxis driving through locations in L.A., New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki. Frederick Elmes’ superbly evocative cinematography captures the beauty of each location in a low-key way that underscores the awkward intimacy of each cab’s mismatched occupants. Jarmusch’s screenplay never overstates the connections forged between the drivers and their fares. At best, a tentative fondness develops but most of the rides end with barely the basis for an anecdote. These are not life-changing interactions so much as glimpses of the kind of fleeting non-relationships we’re forced to endure every day in order to navigate our lives. A couple of characters come away with new perspectives but none of them are significantly changed by their experiences. They’re just trying to get where they’re going. The taxis are their means but the drivers are their obstacles.

As is often the case with anthology films, the quality fluctuates. While I find something to enjoy in all five of these vignettes, the New York and Helsinki segments stand out. The former is a lively, hilarious encounter between Giancarlo Esposito’s streetwise but overbearing Yo-Yo and Armin Mueller-Stahl’s East German immigrant and former circus clown Helmut. The dynamic between the boisterous but well-meaning Yo-Yo and the softly-spoken Helmut is treasurable and Jarmusch makes the most of the absurdist premise without overstating it. The arrival of Rosie Perez as Yo-Yo’s sister-in-law broadens the comedy, providing a blaringly profane counterpoint to Helmut’s gentle bemusement. The Helsinki sequence closes the film on a downbeat but bleakly comic note. This was Jarmusch’s tribute to Finnish filmmakers Aki and Mika Kaurismaki, a point made clear by their names being given to two of the characters. They are also played by Kaurismaki regulars Matti Pellonpää and Kari Väänänen, with Jarmusch saying he picked the locations for his film based on the actors with whom he wanted to work. The chilly, deadpan Finnish sense of humour, not a million miles away from Jarmusch’s own, is replicated wonderfully as the driver and his passengers trade hard luck stories, culminating in a deeply tragic tale from Pellonpää’s driver which changes the whole mood of the piece. This is the kind of sequence that could only have acted as a climax and it closes the film beautifully.

Of the remaining segments, the opening story set in L.A. is my favourite, starring Winona Ryder as a down-to-Earth teenage cabbie whose simple ambitions lead her to casually turn down the chance of a lifetime offered by Gena Rowlands’ Hollywood executive. It’s a disarmingly optimistic little vignette, with Ryder and Rowlands creating a moving and gently funny depiction of a fleeting association. Some of the writing is a bit unsubtle here, such as Ryder’s driver turning on loud music while her passenger is taking a phone call and then rolling her eyes and calling her “Mom” when she asks for it to be turned off. Still, these recognisable clichés play into the captivatingly uncomplicated approach that enhances both the themes and the entertainment value. It’s a charmingly easy watch and a great way to kick things off. The remaining two segments are a little more hit and miss. The Paris sequence, in which a luckless but also tactless driver is taken to task when he questions a blind passenger about her condition, feels a bit jumbled in its intentions. Jarmusch wrote the Night on Earth screenplay in eight days and this is one portion of the script that really feels like it could’ve done with a few more drafts. Themes of race, class, xenophobia and ableism are all present but feel like they need to be more clearly arranged into something narratively satisfying. Then again, there is a definite risk of overwriting this material resulting in finger-wagging absolutes so perhaps Jarmusch’s vaguer scenario is preferable. Either way, though it would’ve been less widely frowned upon in the age of Rain Man and My Left Foot, the casting of the non-blind Béatrice Dalle as the blind woman does feel retrospectively like an uncomfortable example of “cripping up.”

Night on Earth’s penultimate sequence, set in Rome, is the film’s most infamous. Starring Roberto Benigni as a batty cabbie who entertains himself with constant singing, babbling and general tomfoolery, this is one of the goofiest things Jarmusch has ever put on screen. The segment was divisive as many saw it as too silly, clashing with the understated tone of the rest of the film. The Rome sequence is undoubtedly over-the-top but, so help me, it is very funny too. Benigni, frequently improvising his endless stream of dialogue, is hilarious. I particularly enjoy the early part of the story in which he is driving alone and talking to himself the whole time. When I first saw Night on Earth I remember being disappointed when a passenger got in the taxi as I thought this would’ve made a tremendous solo performance for Benigni. Instead, it becomes a farcical and explicit black comedy in which an already ailing priest is pushed over the edge by the severity of the cab driver’s sexual confessions. The confession scene is very funny and I always liked the ambiguity as to whether the driver is in earnest or is just making everything up as an extension of his self-amusement from earlier in the story. Either way, the priest’s extreme reaction and the final moment of physical farce fall a bit flat and the story sputters to an unsatisfactory end. Still, there’s plenty to amuse here too and as a polar-opposite precursor to the slowburning Helsinki finale, the Rome story still works for me.

Returning to Night on Earth after so long felt like seeing an old friend again. Although, as I suspected, some parts didn’t stand up as well as I’d hoped, there were plenty of delights to make this feel like a very brisk, entertaining two hours. Tom Waits’ score, which includes a couple of original songs, compliments the film’s low-key oddness perfectly and the worldwide setting brings a new dimension to Jarmusch’s cinema without once undermining his trademark comedic minimalism. It may not be the best Jarmusch film but as an introduction to his distinctive style I’d recommend Night on Earth as a very fine starting point.

Night on Earth is released on Blu-Ray by Criterion on 19 August 2024. Special features are as follows:

* High-definition digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
* Selected-scene commentary from 2007 featuring director of photography Frederick Elmes and location sound mixer Drew Kunin
* Q&A with Jarmusch from 2007, in which he responds to questions sent in by fans
* Belgian television interview with Jarmusch from 1992

* English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
* PLUS: Essays by filmmakers, authors, and critics Thom Andersen, Paul Auster, Bernard Eisenschitz, Goffredo Fofi, and Peter von Bagh, and the lyrics to Tom Waits’s original songs from the film

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