2. “Paterson”
In "Paterson," the story of a week in the life of a bus driver named Paterson (Adam Driver) who lives in Paterson, New Jersey, Jim Jarmusch weaves a spell—there's no other phrase for it—where life (its routines, dreams, overheard conversations, annoyances, quiet pleasures) is a slow river of accumulated, strange and mundane patterns that could provide clues as to What It's All About, and Why We Are Here, if we could just look at it directly. Synchronicity is not a literary conceit. It exists in the world. It could be written off as a meaningless cluster of similarities, or it could be interpreted as one of the ways in which the chaotic and harsh universe organizes itself.
Jarmusch's film actually manages to capture the very specific and unique experience of synchronicity without underlining. As Paterson drives his bus, recurring patterns flicker on the periphery, glimpsed briefly, ephemerally. Coincidences? Maybe. But maybe not. A tilted mailbox. Glimpses of twins. A box of matches. Poetry is everywhere. Paterson is the home of one of America's most famous poets, William Carlos Williams, who wrote, famously, "No ideas but in things." Williams' poems are filled with "things"—plums, a wheelbarrow, chickens, a wild carrot leaf—which, through the poem, go through a "profound change." Williams also wrote, "The particular thing … offers a finality that sends us spinning through space." Jarmusch's film is filled with "things" too, the accumulation of which sends "us spinning through space."
An enormously tender film, "Paterson" embraces community (the local bar, the craft fair attended by Paterson's girlfriend, the passengers on Paterson's bus), but it also embraces the private dreamspaces of its characters, some that are shared, others left hidden. What a thing it is to watch a film where everyone does their level best to be kind to one another. That's what living in the world is all about. It's a small miracle that Jarmusch (and his cast and production team) pull this off, although considering his body of work it's not a surprise. "The poet thinks with his poem," said William Carlos Williams. And, as always, Jarmusch thinks—beautifully, personally, intuitively—with "Paterson." (Sheila O’Malley)
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