Only Lovers Left Alive  

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Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 internationally co-produced vampire film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, Jeffrey Wright, Slimane Dazi and John Hurt. A co-production of the United Kingdom and Germany, the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

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Plot

Married for centuries and now living half a world apart, two vampires wake as the sun goes down. Adam sits holding a lute, in his cluttered Detroit Victorian, as Eve wakes up in her bedroom in Tangier, surrounded by books. Rather than feeding on humans directly, they are dependent on local suppliers of the "good stuff", for fear of blood contaminated by the 21st century environment. Adam, still a famous musician, also fears exposure, visiting a local blood bank in the dead of night in disguise as "Dr. Faust", bribing "Dr. Watson" for his coveted O negative. Eve relies on their old friend, the author Christopher Marlowe, who faked his death in 1593 and now lives under the protection of a protégé.

Despite having influenced the careers of countless famous musicians and scientists, Adam has become withdrawn and suicidal. His desire to reconnect through his music is at odds with the danger of recognition as well as his contempt for the corrupt and foolish humans he refers to as 'zombies'. He spends his days recording his compositions on outdated studio equipment and lamenting the state of the modern world, whilst collecting vintage instruments. He pays Ian, a naive young music fan, to procure vintage guitars and other assorted curiosities, including a custom-made wooden bullet with a brass casing he thinks of using to kill himself. Having acquired much scientific knowledge over the years, Adam has built contraptions to power his home and a vintage sports car with technology originally pioneered by Nikola Tesla. His reclusive nature adds to his mystique as a musician and composer; he is upset when some intrepid fans turn up on his doorstep. Ian promises to discreetly spread rumours about Adam living elsewhere to draw them away.

When Eve phones, she recognises Adam is despondent and decides to come to Detroit to comfort him. Soon after she arrives, Adam goes out for more blood and she discovers his revolver hidden under the bed with the wooden bullet. Her vampire senses reveal to her that the bullet is new and she is worried. Eve confronts Adam when he returns, chiding him for wasting the life and opportunities he has to enjoy and appreciate the good things in the world, as well as their relationship. They spend their nights cruising the empty streets of Detroit, listening to music and playing chess. Their idyll is shattered by the arrival of Eve's younger sister, Ava, from Los Angeles. Ava gorges herself on their stash of the "good stuff" and hungry for excitement, persuades them to go out to a local club with Ian, where they hear Adam's music playing by the band White Hills. Ava offers Ian a hit off the flask she secretly filled with blood and brought to the club but Adam snatches it from her with supernatural speed and insists they leave. Before dawn, Ava kills Ian by drinking too much of his blood and Adam kicks her out of the house.

Adam and Eve dispose of Ian's corpse in an acid pool in an abandoned factory. Ian's murder and the appearance of another group of Adam's fans at the house, compel the couple hastily to return to Tangier with only what they can carry onto the plane. Desperately hungry, they visit Marlowe and learn that their old friend and mentor has been poisoned by accidentally drinking contaminated blood. After they discuss how Marlowe secretly wrote most of Shakespeare's plays, Marlowe dies. Eve takes Adam's ready cash and leaves him with the promise of a gift. He is captivated by the music from a nearby club, where Lebanese singer Yasmine is finishing a haunting song. Eve reappears with a beautiful oud and as they sit together outdoors and contemplate their likely demise, they spot a pair of young lovers kissing. "What choice do we have?" Adam remarks, before the two of them approach the couple with the intent of drinking their blood.

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Soundtrack

Jarmusch's band SQÜRL, primarily responsible for the film's score, opens the film with a version of Wanda Jackson’s 1961 song "Funnel of Love". Other contributors to the soundtrack are Zola Jesus (a.k.a. Nika Roza Danilova) and Lebanese vocalist Yasmine Hamdan, while Dutch lute player Jozef van Wissem's compositions formed the core of the film's aural aesthetic. During the week of the soundtrack album's release, in April 2014, Van Wissem explained:

I know the way [Jarmusch] makes his films is kind of like a musician. He has music in his head when he’s writing a script so it’s more informed by a tonal thing than it is by anything else ... I feel that I’m sort of political. Jim’s film is anti-contemporary-society. And the lute goes against all technology and against all computers and against all the shit you don’t need.

Van Wissem also described the film as "a very personal film, maybe even autobiographical" and that "Jim is a cultural sponge, he absorbs everything". A concert was held at the Santos Party House venue in New York City in April 2014 to celebrate the release of Jarmusch's eleventh feature film. During the Santos event, Jesus performed with van Wissem on both a "pseudo-Gregorian" piece from the film's soundtrack and an unrecorded collaboration.

The list of songs:



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