Dead Man DVD Review

"DEAD MAN" reviews

DVD

DEAD MAN

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2005-10-25 21:42:24

Provider

DVD Review

Jim Jarmusch has graduated from quirky indie director to a celebrated moviemaker of modern America. His films have picked up on raw talent and given us a shop window to the future stars of tomorrow. In Dead Man it's Johnny Depp who joins Jarmusch for a surrealist western.

Depp is Bill Blake. An accountant who rides the railway to the town of Machine for a job offer in the West. When he arrives Robert Mitchum's factory owner tells him he's too late. Penniless and jobless he then becomes a fugitive when wrongly accused of murder after killing a man in self-defence. Now with a price on his head he's befriended by a Native American called Nobody (geddit?). Nobody believes him to be William Blake, the poet on his journey to the world of the spirits. Blake comes to believe it himself and, pursued by bounty hunters engaged by Mitchum, continues on his journey to absolute peace via strange meetings, gunfights and long journeys through the silent wilderness.

This is funny and charming, compelling movie, yet typically off-kilter and littered with quality acting. If the esoteric plot, shot in highly contrasted black and white, doesn't engage you for a moment you can always try and count the cameos! Look at this list: John Hurt, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Henriksen, Alfred Molina, Crispin Glover, Billy Bob Thornton and Iggy Pop. Depp himself is enigmatic. Made following his early Tim Burton films it marks the beginning of his studied journey to mainstream fare.

Jarmusch gives you time to drink in the setting and consequently you can practically taste the West. With Neil Young's haunting score as a perfect fit Dead Man stands repeated viewing, which you'll need if you're to spot Steve Buscemi's fleeting appearance.