Paterson

Directed By: Jim Jarmusch Written By: Jim JarmuschStarring: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Barry Shabaka Hen

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Jim Jarmusch is evidently a man of poetry. It’s rife in his latest film Paterson, an exceedingly charming work which is so minimalist it’s stylish. A poetic presence is traceable to the mere use of names, where Adam Driver plays a bus driver named Paterson, living in a town named Paterson in a movie that goes by the same name. The names are insightful, suggesting a man who is deeply enveloped in his surroundings, happily and proudly absorbed by them, to the point where they forge the fabric of his identity.

Paterson, the man, is also fond of poetry. He writes before he takes off on his route each day, and he writes in his cosy basement at night, translating, through words, the minute into metaphors for life, like when a packet of blue tip matches is used to encapsulate his relationship with his loving partner Laura (affectionately played by Golshifteh Farahani). It’s this same skill that is the triumph of the film itself, where profundity is wrung from simplicities, prophetic insights from the seemingly banal.

The film details a week in Paterson’s life, a life which we quickly establish the rhythm of. Every morning he wakes up somewhat cradling his partner, the time somewhere between 6.15 and 6.30am. He has some cheerios and walks to work. He jots down some stanzas before his shift officially starts, each time briefly chatting to his boss Everett (William Jackson Harper) before he sets off. “How are you?” Paterson will ask, to which Everett will rattle off a small army of burdens in response (struggles to keep up with the mortgage, troubles paying for his daughter’s violin lessons, rash on his back, etc). Hours are condensed to seconds, Paterson returns home, quickly adjusts to Laura’s new art around the house, has dinner, walks his insubordinate dog, stops by his favourite bar, and has a single beer before the day is fin

alised by a slow fade to black, after which it can all start again.

The checkpoints in the film are bridged by Paterson’s observations of those around him. He eavesdrops on the various passengers who step onto his bus, a wry smile crawling across his face as he listens. He listens to the patrons at the bar as he chats to its owner Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley), another man deeply enveloped by his hometown, celebrating Paterson’s celebrities on his scant wall of fame. But truthfully, there is no story as such, rather just the cyclical machinations of one man’s day, made cinematic by Jarmusch’s distinctively economic style, so often content to merely lay his camera down still, allowing his characters to wonder into frame seemingly of their own accord. The film’s biggest reveal centres around why Paterson’s mailbox stands slightly off centre, and the film’s key moments of drama are ultimately red herrings, materialising into little; the first moment regarding Paterson’s bus breaking down, the other regarding an altercation at the bar.

So then, the question must be asked, what is Paterson actually about? There’s a quote in the film in which our eponymous character recounts how his father would sing “Swinging on a Star”. “Would you rather be a fish?” the song poses, before continuing on; “would you rather be a pig?” or a “mule?” Paterson doesn’t much care for these other verses however, just the bit about fish, as though the rest of the song doesn’t exist. Jarmusch’s film is a warming examination of the beauty of an uncomplicated thing, where Paterson, in his mind, strips the song down to a single verse, and plays out his days with a ritualistic repetition. Paterson’s days are not monotonous, they are simple but full, and Jarmusch revels in the sobered, modest life of his protagonist.

It’s also a film filled with love; a love of

art and a love of people. Whilst Paterson jots down verses in his notebook, Laura increasingly decorates their home with strokes of white and black paint on their walls, their curtains, and anything else fit to bear paint, to the point where the house is consumed with monochromatic circles and stripes by film’s end. Laura also muses about being a country music star despite having never learnt how to play the guitar or sing, just as she muses about Paterson becoming a renowned poet, forever encouraging him to have copies of his work made. But this isn’t a film about artistic pursuits. Rather art is therapy in Paterson, as a means of expression, of filtering identity, part of life’s grain. Paterson and Laura love each other deeply. There is no conflict, no clashing of ideals. They are something of an odd couple, but Paterson never more than blinks at his partner’s eccentricities. Instead he embraces them, just as the film seems to embrace us in a hug, Adam Driver’s terrifically understated performance all the while bringing the film’s gentle humanism to the forefront.  

It is indeed a meandering film, it’s ultimate lack of destination and peaks in the narrative necessitate as much, but the meandering is to be revelled in rather than rejected. It’s the cyclical nature of life that Jarmusch is celebrating, his love of simplicity as pronounced as Paterson’s quiet love of life himself. It’s a little treasure of a movie.

Rating: 3.75/4