Mystery Train

Plot synopsis:
The film consists of three stories that take place on the same night in downtown Memphis. The three stories are linked together by the Arcade Hotel, a run-down flophouse presided over by the night clerk (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and bellboy (Cinqué Lee), where the principal characters in each story spend a part of the night. Every room in the hotel is adorned with a portrait of Elvis Presley.
The first story, "Far From Yokohama", features Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh) and Jun (Masatoshi Nagase), a teenage couple from Yokohama making a pilgrimage to Memphis during a trip across America. Mitsuko is obsessed with Elvis to the point where she believes that there is a mystical connection between Elvis, Madonna and the Statue of Liberty. The film follows the couple as they travel from the train station, through downtown Memphis and an exhausting tour of Sun Records, to the Arcade hotel.
The second story, "A Ghost", is about an Italian widow, Luisa (Nicoletta Braschi), who is stranded in Memphis while escorting her husband's coffin back to Italy. Luisa, who has been conned twice and stuck with armfuls of magazines, is forced to share a room at the hotel with Dee Dee (Elizabeth Bracco), a young woman who has just left her boyfriend (Johnny from the final story) and who plans to leave the city in the morning. Luisa is kept awake by Dee Dee's constant talking, and when the young woman finally does go to sleep, she is visited by an apparition of Memphis' most famous icon – Elvis Presley.
The final story, "Lost in Space", introduces Johnny (Joe Strummer). Upset after losing his job and his girlfriend (Dee Dee), Johnny – known, much to his chagrin, as Elvis – drunkenly brandishes a gun in a bar before leaving with his friend Will Robinson (Rick Aviles) and his ex-girlfriend's brother Charlie (Steve Buscemi), who believes Johnny to be his brother-in-law. They stop at a liquor store, which Johnny robs using the gun and severely wounds the owner in the process. Fearing the consequences of the incident, Johnny, Will and Charlie retire to the hotel to hide out for the night; there, Johnny gets drunker. Charlie realizes that Will shares the same name as the character Will Robinson from the television show Lost in Space, which Johnny has never heard of. Charlie and Will proceed to tell him about the show, and Will comments that that is how he feels then with Charlie and Johnny: lost in space. The next morning, Charlie discovers that Johnny isn't really his brother-in-law, which angers him because of what they've been through. Johnny attempts to shoot himself, and while struggling to prevent him, Charlie is shot in the leg. Leaving the hotel, the three rush to escape a police car that isn't even looking for them. The closing credits show the train, the airport and the final views of the characters from the first two stories.

Tags: murder, cult, atmospheric, psychedelic, humor, storytelling

Review:
'Mystery Train' is probably the most entertaining, interesting and understated of indie-fave Jim Jarmusch's early work (i haven't seen 'Coffee and Cigarettes' yet).
The films portrayal of Elvis' birthplace of Memphis, possibly one of the most featureless, gritty and desolate representations of urban America ever committed to film, is a deceptively clever and substantial take on American subcultures.Without doubt, it is the first of the films three vignettes that makes the film stand out a little more than Jarmusch's other quirky offerings.
Jim Jarmusch's follow-up to 1986's "Down By Law" is an engrossing trio of stories revolving around one night in a run-down Memphis hotel.
The cast includes cult performers like Tom Noonan (the serial killer in Michael Mann's "Manhunter"), Steve Buscemi, and singer Tom Waits (heard on the radio), and it is directed by one of America's leading independent directors.
"Mystery Train" is possibly Jim Jarmusch's most immaculate film, and though the movie gets steadily darker in its comic tone, it is his least bleak work to date.
Robbie Muller, the great Dutch cameraman who shot Alex Cox's "Repo Man" and Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas", once more brings an outsider's perspective to the American landscape, giving the night scenes and hotel interiors a Hopperesque look and endowing a dilapidated section of Memphis with an elegaic sadness..
While all of them (even Dead Man and Year of the Horse, movies that boggled my mind with how strange they were) carry a level of off-beat, original, and fresh kind of film-making prowess, I think my favorite (hard to say 'best' with this director) is with this film, Mystery Train.
The idea behind both films is very similar, but of course executed in entirely different trajectories - one person or place has a level of importance for what will happen to the characters in the film (with 'Pulp' it was Marsellus Wallace; with 'Mystery' it's the Hotel run by Screaming' Jay Hawkins, and the song Blue Moon on radio).
On its own terms, Mystery Train comes out entertaining if one doesn't want to think about the timing of the plot, even if that is carefully, almost architecturally constructed.Although the second and third stories are linked by character associations, the first is a stand-alone segment that looks like if it was just on paper could make for a calm, witty short story.
As it is in the film, the Japanese couple "Far from Yokohama" featuring actors Masatoshi Nagase and Yôki Kudô, is an inviting first part of the film, almost entirely in Japanese subtitles, and playing off of the lady's love of Elvis, and the guy's quiet love for Carl Perkins (a name I didn't really know until I asked around).
Interesting still is how he sets up other little bits with supporting characters as the leads unfurls- this being an occasional couple of lines between Hawkins and down-beat bellboy Cinque Lee (there are also very quick shots of Steve Buscemi as a barber, the only small connection to the other two stories, and Rufus Thomas at the station).
Nicoletta Braschi (Roberto Benigni's wife in most films as in life) is astray in Memphis on a flight, and instead of seeking out Elvis gets it delivered to her in a vision while in a hotel room with a talky Jersey Girl (Elizabeth Bracco).
It's a complete kind of surreal scene that acts as the fine top-off to a set of odder circumstances that bring her to the hotel (in particular Tom Noonan in one of the funniest small roles I've seen in any Jarmusch film).
His scenes are lit sometimes with all the realism and fantasy of a European fantasy film, but also with a careful eye in composition and getting unusual angles on things a simple as photographing two people in bed or a person walking alone with Memphis in the backdrop.
Mystery Train may be one of the quintessential 80's indie films (which can be said of Stinger than Paradise and Down by Law as well), that welcomes anyone who might be interested to watch, and if you don't like it, it's not at the worst offensive to taste.
Memphis is the setting, and the specter of Elvis pervades a trio of stories in `Mystery Train,' written and directed by Jim Jarmusch.
To tell his tale, Jarmusch has assembled a talented, eclectic cast of actors, including Masatoshi Nagase (Jun) and the charismatic Youki Kudoh (Mitsuko), the couple from Japan with opposing perspectives of Memphis; Nicoletta Braschi (Luisa), the widow awaiting a flight back to Rome; Elizabeth Bracco (Dee Dee), a young woman whose life is in transition; Tom Noonan (Man in Diner), a man with a menacing presence and a strange tale to tell; Steve Buscemi (Charlie), a regular guy led astray by trusting indifference, along with Rick Aviles (Will Robinson) and Lowell Roberts (Lester); Stephen Jones, a dead-ringer for Elvis who is extremely effective here as his ghost; and the two whose characters are pivotal to the story, Screamin' Jay Hawkins (Hotel Night Clerk), and Cinque Lee (The Bellboy).
Thoroughly engrossing and highly entertaining, `Mystery Train' is vintage Jarmusch; a director whose minimalist techniques and style make for a satisfying and rewarding movie-going experience.
He will not dazzle you with ILM F/X or feed you endless lines of witty dialogue; instead, he gives you more:  A film that is artistically and cleverly rendered, with an engaging story and characters that are `real.'  An independent filmmaker who stays true to his personal `vision,' Jarmusch gives you that which is rarely found in Hollywood.
Jim Jarmusch (Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Broken Flowers) delivers films that are true indy's.
Steve Buscemi is fun to watch as always, and I really liked the Japanese teen, Youki Kudoh, and, of course Robby Müller's (Paris, Texas) cinematography is always good.Jarmusch fans will love it..
"Mystery Train" moves along at a pace identical to that of "Night on Earth." It has those usual Jarmusch trademarks:  characters from a foreign country, culture clashes, episodic rhythm, etc.
You can never watch a Jarmusch film and say to yourself, "Man, people don't talk like that in real life!"  Though highly identical to "Night on Earth," I found that film much more engaging in comparison, and I could've help but ponder that while watching this movie.
Jarmusch makes good use of the camera, preventing us from feeling like we're watching a photographed play--even though many scenes fixate on one location.
Elvis, Screaming Jay Hawkins, a seedy hotel, an endless steamy night, the desolation, the Guide at the Sun Studios, the Japanese tourists: I don't want to say any more.
Released in 1989, MYSTERY TRAIN was Jim Jarmusch's third film.
The film consists of three independent but interlocking vignettes which take place in a Memphis hotel run by Screamin' Jay Hawkins with the help of bellboy Cinque Lee.In the first scene, young Japanese tourists Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh) and Jun (Matsatoshi Nagase) pass through Memphis to see the monuments of 1950s rock 'n' roll.
MYSTERY TRAIN was Jarmusch's first film in colour and he chose a lovely cool palette that jars with Screamin' Jay Hawkins' electric red suit..
In "Mystery Train", Jim Jarmusch does with Memphis what he would later do with taxis in "Night on Earth".
A really good scene shows a woman walking through this ghetto, while the affluent downtown appears in the background.It is true that Jim Jarmusch is an acquired taste, but "Mystery Train" will probably appeal to more people if only because of the soundtrack.
Masatoshi Nagase, Youki Kudoh, Steve Buscemi, Rick Aviles, Joe Strummer, Nicoletta Braschi, Elizabeth Bracco and Screamin' Jay Hawkins all put on some great performances, with Tom Waits as the radio announcer.
Buscemi turns in what has become his signature performance, Strummer acts (or maybe is) drunk and Nagase doesn't really have very much to do or say as Jun.Mystery Train is not a bad movie but, by the same token, it's not a great movie.
I can't help thinking that the film might have been more interesting if the three threads had been inter-cut, but not intersecting, to give the illusion of a more complex plot - but, hey, I'm not a director.Mystery Train is watchable, but it fails to live up to the reputation of Jarmusch's Down By Law which is far superior in nearly every respect.
This means that unless you are fluent in these two languages or Japanese or Italian, you are not going to understand 33% of the dialogue in this movie.Which, all things considered, isn't that big of a deal since Mystery Train can be enjoyed even with the sound off....
Three stories are connected by a Memphis hotel and the spirit of Elvis Presley.I love how this film takes for granted the universality of Elvis -- he is not only synonymous with Memphis, but is well known to both Americans and foreigners (Italians and Japanese, in this film).Indeed, director Jarmusch points out that with our crumbling American culture (his words, not mine) all that our culture ever offered was musicians and movie stars.
American culture is not opera, painting or theater (though we may have these things) -- it is Elvis and Hollywood.Throw in Steve Buscemi to an already great film, and you have gold.
Director Jim Jarmusch continues to indulge his fascination with America's cultural residue, this time going directly to one of the more reliable sources: Memphis, Tennessee, home of the Once and Future King himself, Elvis Presley.
Like other Jarmusch films it's a deadpan, deadbeat sampling of offbeat Americana, seen by outsiders on the inside looking out: an Elvis-idolizing Japanese tourist and her cool, catatonic boyfriend; a young Italian widow who receives a ghostly visitation from the King; and an expatriate English drop-out bearing an unfortunate resemblance to the Man From Memphis.
This is the third film by Jarmusch that I watch(the others being Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and Night on Earth).
The opening shots of Jim Jarmusch's new film show two young Japanese tourists in a faded Amtrak coach, listening to their Walkmans as the train pulls through the edge of Memphis.
But, though he is a natural at dry goofiness, Jarmusch is not quite as much a comedian as an idealist, who sees America as an immigrant might, as a bizarre, nostalgic country where the urban landscapes are painted by Robert Henri and the all-night blues stations supply a soundtrack for life.The tourists arrive in Memphis and haul their luggage through the yawning train station, and walk to the Sun studios, where a guide babbles on with her pitch about Presley and Perkins faster than an auctioneer could.
Other people will check into this hotel during the movie's lasting night of intricacy.The soundtrack is from a local radio station, and Elvis' version of Blue Moon is heard at some point during all three segments of the narrative, supplying a collective bond, as does an offscreen gunshot.
Mystery train is a clever and funny film in full Jarmush style; in my opinion it is an enjoyable and light hearted film constructed in such a way that as the plot proceeds, the audience begins to pay attention to various details used as a way to connect the three stories together.
I enjoyed particularly the first story which depicted the Japanese couple on a discovery tour of Memphis, here Jarmush's interest for the human's behaviour is evident as the couple relationship, although it might seem to be almost comical, is in fact a quite realistic stereotyipical representation of a Japanese relationship.Definitely worth watching it if you are into independent "no mainstream" films..
A bad pizza, bad sex, or a bad movie with Steve Buscemi in it.This typically quirky Jim Jarmusch film consists of four overlapping stories whose characters, for better or for worse, all end up one night in a rundown Memphis hotel.
A young Japanese couple making the rock and roll fan's obligatory pilgrimage; a recently widowed young Italian woman; a New Jersey transplant who's run out on her lover and is making her way back home; and three friends, including the latter's brother and her drunken, depressed ex, who have gotten themselves into a "situation".It's not just Buscemi - all members of this extraordinary cast, which includes Joe Strummer, Elizabeth Bracco, Rick Aviles, and two wonderful Japanese actors whom I've never heard of - plus the laugh out loud script, make this film a treat..
During the first twenty minutes or so of this film one is overwhelmed with the notion that writer director Jim Jarmusch is a genius: a pair of young Japanese rock and roll lovers travel to Memphis, Tennessee to visit the formative sights of legendary star Elvis Presley.
"Mystery Train' is the third film by director Jim Jarmusch and as he describes it: "its the third film of a trilogy." The other two films were "Stranger then Paradise" and "Down by Law".
The film is set up like a journey on a train divided into three separate stories that find their way in the same location.
The last story "Lost in Space" is about the boyfriend Elvis and two other friends who drive around drunk and later get in trouble with the law.As with all of Jarmusch's films, the plot is never as important as the details and nuances.
This sounds much like the same disc jockey Tom Waits played in Down By Law. And Screamin Jay Hawkins's put a spell on Jarmusch's first film "Stranger the Paradise" as his presence does here.
Plus there is a double dose of the title song "Mystery Train" by both Junior Parker and Elvis.This quirky Jim Jarmusch project features Masatoshi Nagase, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Elizabeth Bracco, Steve Buscemi, Rick Aviles, Cinque Lee, Rufus Thomas and the voice of Tom Waits.
In "Mystery Train" we have three different stories that happen at the same time in the same place to three diferent groups of people without crossing with each other much.
And the place is Memphis, the city where Elvis Presley was born and rose to stardom and where his ghost is still wondering according to one of the stories shown in the film.
Among the cast are easily recognasible Nicoletta Braschi (Life is Beautiful) as Italian tourist, who also appeared in Jim Jarmush previous film "Down by Law", and Steve Buscemi best known from Coen brothers movies.
I really don't like art movies but this one is very interesting,in a bucolic and already decadent Memphis three stories happen in same time with different an unusual characters crossing their destiny in a cheap hotel,each one didn't are connected but all them acting so close like a parallel world,just Dee Dee has a little link with some them,the music score is fabulous as opening "Mistery Train" the best,Memphis is a kind of Rock'n Roll's Meca,survives from their past idols that addressed mainly to Elvis due cause he lived there,fantastic Jarmush picture!!Resume:First watch: 1991 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.25.
The movie has all the recognizable characteristics of Jim Jarmusch, which make him one of my favorite directors, but this time the story left me totally indifferent.
The film plays 3 stories, skeletally interwoven in time (the radio dj sequences), space (the hotel), and by relationships (a couple recently broken-up).
This is just as good as Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise but better then Down By Law. The movie starts out with a young Japanese couple on a train going to Memphis,Tennessee to see Elvis's hometown.
This film is an original, funny and well acted story of three connected stories revolving around a Memphis hotel which is a personal shrine to Elvis.
I'm not much of a fan of Jim Jarmusch, but 1989's Mystery Train (his fourth film and first one in color) is quite engaging in they way it tells three minimalist stories occurring in what is presumably the seedier side of Memphis.
"Mystery Train" is a peculiar little piece of film-making and very true to Jim Jarmusch's unpredictable style.
Don't get me wrong, there are some wonderful things about Mystery Train, and, overall, I liked it more than I did Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law. But I always felt like I should be liking it a lot more, and I just never felt much more than a nice affection for the movie.
The movie is about three different stories which are taking place in the same place at the same time (at night in some cheap motel).
Jim Jarmusch is really good in telling different stories who are connected one to each other and also in this case he's doing a great job.
Mystery train is another movie which shows the life of common people, but I think this is his funniest movie, just before Night on earth.
The movie consists of three different stories: Far from Yokohama - the first story of a young Japanese couple, obsessed with Elvis Presley.
Overall, Mystery Train is a funny movie, with a lot of drama, comedy and memorable scenes.
Marvelous movie in Jarmusch style; several storylines only touching each other slightly, bringing an ode to both Memphis-style America and Elvis Presley.Jarmusch is a master in bringing odd characters together, including Japanese tourists, a lost Italian woman, some freaked out hotel-personnel (including Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and a couple of small-time crooks.** minor spoilers ahead!
With the ghosts of Elvis both figuratively and literally appearing in every frame, and the seedy run down side of Memphis on display, the film certainly has a unique character.
Looking at the critics of Jarmusch's films, it seems that there are people who think that his movies are slow, boring and tedious.
The third segment made me wish the movie would end soon.The music, which is essential in other Jarmusch films, is not as impressive in this one.
What is great is the fact that Jarmusch can balance all three stories and make them all work.Far From Yokohama- A good segment.