“Here, let me tell you a joke, all right? There’s three guys, and they’re walking down the street. One guy says to the other one, “Hey, your shoe’s untied.” He says, “I know that.” And they walk… No… There’s two guys, they’re walking down the street, and one of them says to the other one, “Your shoe’s untied.” And the other guy says, “I know that.” And they walk a couple blocks further, and they see a third friend, and he comes up and says, “Your shoe’s untied.” “Your shoe’s un – ” Aaah, I can’t remember this joke. But it’s good. “

‘Stranger than Paradise’, written and directed by Jim Jarmusch in 1984, is an American, low budget comedy focusing on the relationship between a New Yorker and his Hungarian cousin. Jarmusch’s second feature, this film is low key, grimy and intimate, but with touches of affected romantic genius. John Lurie plays Willie, a man whose unruly life is disturbed by the imposition of his sparky, spikey cousin Eva, played by Eszter Balint. Gradually he warms to her when she demonstrates a shared approach to authority and a shared cynicism but her time in New York comes to an end and she moves to Cleveland. When Willie and his friend Eddie win money cheating at poker, they visit Cleveland to ‘rescue’ Eva and take her to the warmth of Florida, but lose their ill-gotten money. The conclusion of the film features an almost farcical turning of tables as Willie ends up accidentally on a plane to Hungary whilst Eva stays in Florida. It’s a downbeat road movie with little in the way of incident, but a rich vein of character comedy. The character of Willie is typically Jarmuschian, similar to Jack in ‘Down by Law’, also played by Lurie. Where this film stands out is in the way if depicts the cities the characters visit: the bleak and unkempt New York, and almost ethereally snowy Cleveland and the dry, outland of Florida. These three settings define the film, and Jarmusch’s long and languid takes make the most out of them.

Would I recommend it? Like ‘Down by Law’ there is a charm and sense of ‘closeness’ with this film. The characters, despite their flaws, are likeable enough for us to care what happens to them. I’d watch it in a double bill with ‘Alice in the Cities’, a Wim Wenders film that also starts in New York, but goes in a different direction.