FILM REVIEW: Jim Jarmusch’s "The Dead Don’t Die" is a flesh-eating, fourth-wall breaking absurdist delight
Across his career, Jim Jarmusch has evolved from humble beginnings into an exceptionally talented master of stylized minimalism. Looking back retrospectively, it is nothing short of astounding how consistently good his robust catalogue is, which spans over 30 years and 12 films. One of the most fascinating (and arguably, distinctive) aspects of his output is how gradually he has matured as a director and how carefully he has refined his particular brand of storytelling. Through the eyes of Jarmusch, we see mundane, everyday life rendered with vibrant and otherworldly colors. Never has a director so brilliantly employed the ethos of the insightful adage: less is more.
In The Dead Don’t Die, the plot this time around concerns the citizens of the small rural town of Centerville, who are trying to survive a plague of zombies, brought to life by an environmental disaster from something only referred to as ‘polar fracking’. The cast is utterly jam-packed with iconic actors and musicians who give fantastic performances, exuding delightfully absurd chemistry. Bill Murray and Adam Driver play two bickering local police officers fumbling to keep the situation under control with Chloe Sevigny as a deputy unfortunately caught in between their petty squabbles; Tilda Swinton plays an otherworldly and enigmatic undertaker; Tom Waits a hermit who lives in the woods; Danny Glover a friendly neighbourhood repairman; Selena Gomez a down-to-earth out of town city slicker and gee whiz, that is not even a quarter of the cast featured in this film.
The film lore of the Undead since the beginning has been used predominately as a metaphor for excessive consumerism and frivolous materialism and has spawned hundreds of films. The twist with The Dead Won’t Die is how it subverts the expectations of the audience, both Jarmusch and zombie film fans, and how it flaunts this to an extremely frustrating degree. Each interaction and line of dialogue feels like a commentary and subversion of the characteristics and cliches that make up both Jarmusch films and the Zombie film genre, with characters acting so hilariously devoid of humanity, you’d think they were directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. The film’s theme song composed by Sturgell Simpson is incessantly referenced by the characters, sometimes even by breaking the fourth wall, to the point where our characters become visibly exacerbated whenever somebody mentions the song.
However, the film’s relentless and unapologetic sense of apathy, while it makes for an unexpectedly refreshing twist on the legacy of the Undead, can sometimes undermine an otherwise captivating absurdist Zombie film with some sequences being so lifeless and dull, that they are downright boring.
On paper, The Dead Won’t Die appears to be your standard Jarmusch affair; ensemble cast of eccentric actors and musicians, memorable vignettes of dialogue rich with deadpan humour, all behind the backdrop of a bare-bones plot, grounded in a distinct sense of realism. In execution, it is one of the most unexpectedly bewildering and truly bizarre films of his career that will no doubt leave patrons, both Jarmusch admirers and newcomers alike either loving or loathing this utmost diabolical creation.
