Event

Stranger Than Paradise

Rootless Hungarian émigré Willie (John Lurie), his pal Eddie (Richard Edson), and visiting sixteen-year-old cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) always manage to make the least of any situation, whether aimlessly traversing the drab interiors and environs of New York City, Cleveland, or an anonymous Florida suburb. With its delicate humor and dramatic nonchalance, Jim Jarmusch's one-of-a-kind minimalist masterpiece, _Stranger Than Paradise_, forever transformed the landscape of American independent cinema.

"Structurally, the movie is a tour de forcea succession of brief vignettes punctuated by opaque film stock. There are no reverse angles, no point-of-view shots; each scene is a single take. Characters enter the frame as though it were a stage, and the effect is Kabuki sitcom, yet powerfully naturalistican amalgam of Damon Runyan and Piet Mondrian thats a triumph of low-budget stylization." - Village Voice, 1984

"This is a plaintive, intelligent, laconic New York comedy almost avant-garde, certainly avant-garde in comparison to major feature films that owes nothing at all to Woody Allen. What Woody Allen owes to Ingmar Bergman and Charlie Chaplin, Jim Jarmusch owes to Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton From beginning to end, Jarmusch carries it off. His vision is stranger than paradise, and his talent is odder than hell." - Globe and Mail

"Daring in its conception but made with a watchmaker's care, "Stranger Than Paradise" is a playfully eclectic, formally perfect gem. It is also a persistently funny film that owes as much to "The Honeymooners" as it does to the avant-garde" - Paul Attanasio, Washinton Post

"A treasure from one end to the other." - Roger Ebert

"The American Dream inverted, that its characters are carefree is a by-product not of sharing in the Dream, but of dealing with life on the margins." - Filmcritic.com