"Dead Man" (1995) - Movie Review

Films with no standard plot or a story ending to an uncertain conclusion need strong characters. “The Big Lebowski” is one such example of it. The beauty of the film like “The Big Lebowski” is the unique characterization and a plot which never converges. The film progresses and taken as sequence by sequence thereby providing a nice effect of multiple facet of the unique character navigating through further unique characters. “Dead Man” directed by Jim Jarmusch tries to follow those but provides a very plain and bland effect.

William Blake (Johnny Depp) arrives at the town of Machine to work as an Accountant. The travel is through a very long journey over the train and it is shown by people changing now and then when Blake wakes up from his sleep time to time. The train fireman (Crispin Glover) warns Blake of the unknown and desolated town of Machine. With that and some weird town people, Blake comes to know that his job is taken. The owner Mr. Dickinson (Robert Mitchum) drives him away from his office. Blake encounters with a beautiful woman Thel(Mili Avital) and stays with her over the night. A man enters her apartment and we come to know that he is the ex-lover of Thel. He is upset by the presence of Blake and having to hear that Thel never loved him, he tries to kill Blake. Blake is shielded by Thel and he kills the man. Passing through Thel, the bullet hurts Blake too. Wounded he vanishes into the woods. Later it is known that the man is Charlie Dickinson (Gabriel Byrne) and his father is Mr. Dickinson who hires three outlaws to hunt Blake. Blake meets a strange Native American (Gary Farmer) who helps him and mistakes him for the poet William Blake. Thereon goes the story to nowhere.

The above happens within first 30 minutes of the movie, hence there is not much I gave away. As I said in first paragraph, this movie is not about the plot but about the characters. The film is completely shot in Black and White. It stands out with respect to the clarity and uniqueness required for a movie like this nature. The woods, the sunshine and the outlaws remind Kurosawa’s way of film making. What the movie misses the essence of those impressive dry humour or conversation of attention. Sure the way the character of Gary Farmer talks is interesting. It is in fact rhythmically nice to see some one address one’s name so often. He uses the name of William Blake in every sentence addressing him. But the protagonist as such, William Blake’s character is vague and unknown. He is not a gunman and his transformation into a killer is solid enough. But the mystery his new friend is taking through is aimless and uninteresting. There is no self discovery or a story telling of mystical poetry is told.

The strangest character of all is the most brutal one. One of the outlaws hired by Dickinson is Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen). He is the “silent” one and he kills some one if they pissed him for some very cheap reason. It is true that the time period it is shown makes it believable, but there is nothing out of it. The characters are usual and do not provide the interesting aberrations these movies demand. The film does not take the “spiritual” journey it is hinting till the end. As a short story too, there is not much of emotion or invented unusual friend ship out here. The friendship between William Blake and the Native American who calls himself “Nobody” may be symbolically taken as a man of solitude wandering in the woods of unknown path. Still the character is not ghostly rather it is more human and aids him in a manner of unknown belief. This does not mean that the movie is spiral and confusing. The film is very straight forward. There seems to be hidden meaning but not extensive enough to dwelve upon.

Adding to the strong cinematography by the use of Black and While picture, the soundtrack of Neil Young is the only another noticeable brilliance. The taunting sound of hollow guitar and the timely intrusion of the tuned jarred electric guitar paint the film with the demanded outlaw experience along with the mystical nature of the journey itself. This selection of Jarmusch to go for Neil Young seems to strike the right nature of sound.

“Dead Man” definitely keeps us occupied by that strange journey. But it fails to nail it solid enough into the minds of the viewers. There is no faltering in the screenplay or the direction and for that sake the acting is perfect. The problem is that it is not noticeably different or poetical as it says but a very bland straight lined story not knowing its final end.