Jim Jarmusch is one of those filmmakers that most everyone has heard of, but at the same time most people have never seen any of his output nor could they even name one of his films. In this way, Jarmusch is very much like David Lynch, and the fact that he is a white guy from middle America with big white hair doesn't help to separate them. However their films could not be more different. From what I've seen of Jarmusch (Ghost Dog, Dead Man, and Broken Flowers) his movies tend to be very simplistic studies of idiosyncratic individuals while Lynch focuses more on the surreal nature of life and the human mind, and are sometimes complicated to the point where they step on their own toes.
Ghost Dog is a fantastic film that is squarely in Jarmusch's wheel house. It's simple enough that the plot doesn't get in the way, but interesting and innovative enough to keep the viewer interested and engaged. Ghost Dog tells the story of a black man, named Ghost Dog, who envisions himself as a modern-day samurai. He works for a member of the local mob, doing 'cleaner' work for them when necessary. During a job at the beginning of the film, something goes awry that is not the fault of the ever professional Ghost Dog, and the local mob leaders decide to take Ghost Dog out so as to cover their own tracks. The rest of the film follows Ghost Dog as he attempts to take out these mobsters before they get to him, and delves further into the psyche of this modern samurai.
What makes Ghost Dog great is not the plot but the characterization of the title character. It is never really in doubt that Ghost Dog will be able to get to the mobsters before they get to him, but that doesn't make the movie any less exciting. The ways in which Ghost Dog preemptively strikes at the mob are often fresh and innovative and watching him take out the overweight, ineffectual mobsters is very satisfying. Although Ghost Dog is technically a murderer, there isn't much in terms of moral ambiguity here: he's the good guy and he's going to take the bad guys out.
Much of the film is spent going into the samurai code that drives the way Ghost Dog lives his life. He is often seen reading the Hagakure, which records the samurai code and sayings of famous samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo. There are many sections of voice over where the text of a passage of the Hagakure is displayed on the screen accompanied by Ghost Dog's reading. In many other directors hands this technique might feel clumsy or appear to be spoon feeding the audience, but Jarmusch is able to make it work with an assist by Whittaker's dramatic line readings.
Ghost Dog does have many of those 'quirky' qualities that would qualify it as an 'indie' movie besides just its budget. There are many peculiar characters besides Ghost Dog, including his Hatian best friend who speaks only french yet runs an ice cream truck in the ghetto, and the little girl who takes a shine to him and carries not lunch in her lunchbox but a wide variety of books. One clever scene has Ghost Dog and his Haitian friend view someone building a wooden ship on a roof and have a discussion about it without understanding a word the other one says (this is a recurring theme that could be seen as a joke, or as an examination of the connection two people can make even without the use of words). Additionally, Ghost Dog only communicates to his handler through carrier pigeons and practices with his Katana outside his bird coop even if he doesn't use the sword for his jobs. Finally, at it's core, Ghost Dog is a blend of the gangster and samurai genres that were wildly influential in rap music of the time. And as we all know white indie kids love both blending genres and analyzing black inner city culture that they weren't really a part of.
However as much as I joke, this is not meant as a criticism, Ghost Dog does not feel disingenuous in any way. There is/was a reason that so much of rap music focused on gangsters and samurais (especially the Wu-Tang Clan in the latter case) and this movie does that connection justice.
Forrest Whittaker is absolutely fantastic in a career performance as the title role and the soundtrack (done by Wu-Tang's RZA) is mesmerizing. Hollywood puts out gangster and assassin movies like it's going out of style and frankly I am usually annoyed by them, usually feeling that the genre has nothing new to offer. However, this movie is a great take on those old genres and is one of the best films that I've watched in recent memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment