Afouotos
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Frances Chung
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Steve Pulaski
Jim Jarmusch was an unlikely soul to emerge into the hectic world of film, hailing from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, but then again, so were many of his like-minded peers, who wandered their way into the independent filmmaking renaissance of the 1980's and 1990's. This was a period when everybody, regardless of skin color or social class, wanted to get their voices heard. This period, often called the "do it yourself (DIY) movement," is one that incited a chain reaction of young people who felt that they could show their experiences and voice their own themes on-screen, be them fueled with commentary on racial relations, a triptych about three souls in prison, a film about a clerk going in on his day off, a group of seventies goofballs raising hell in their town, and so forth. The domino effect of the independent film community during this time period was intriguing because with the evolution of home video and cheap, albeit expensive, video technology, ambitious and willing young men and women would see films made on a shoestring budget and think, "I can do that." It's a movement that has spilled over into the past decade and the current one, where one can make, edit, and distribute an entire film on their cell phone and have the world see it on the same device. What a time to be alive.With that being said, because of the state most of these filmmakers were in when they made these films - dead-broke, little means of professional or even competent productions, minimal editing skills, and even fewer means to polish the evident aesthetic shortcomings of many of these films - it's hard to expect many of these early works to be masterpieces. Consider Richard Linklater's It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, which is more or less Jarmusch's directorial debut Permanent Vacation except with a self-referential statement firmly embedded in its title. Linklater was essentially stating shooting a movie, much like learning to plow or do another arduous and time-consuming physical activity, is impossible to learn by reading books. In response to his beliefs, rather than wasting away in a classroom, he got up and scraped together what he could to shoot a seventy-five minute musing about everything and nothing. I gave it a three out of four star rating a few years ago; it was a quirky effort that showed that, at the very least, everyone had a lot on their mind and was excited to unleash it bit by bit throughout the course of their respective careers, with Linklater being the ultimate headmaster.Permanent Vacation has similar charm without the insight, unfortunately. It stars Chris Parker as Aloysius Christopher Parker, whose opening line in the film is the declaration of his name and the fact that if he did indeed have a child, he'd be named "Charles Christopher Parker" just so he can have a son named "Charlie Parker." Aloysius is a drifter, slumming his way through life on a "permanent vacation" of sorts. He's forever a drifter, waywardly wandering from place-to-place and meeting some eccentric folks along the way.I refuse to go forward because Permanent Vacation is an experience in which secondary source summation doesn't do it adequate justice. I will go as far to say, however, that at only seventy-one minutes, this is a film that tests the patience of its audience considerably. It's about as disjointed as you can get, relying on a vignette-style that winds up offering less and less to grapple with each and every passing instance. Because of this, I found myself becoming disconnected throughout the entire experience, only being briefly brought back to the film when Aloysius delivered one of his insightful narrations that broke down his life and experiences in a way that was simultaneously revealing and alienating.Jarmusch toying with that dichotomy through a means that is meant to give us the unspoken truth is a very interesting ploy and those glimmers of subversion and gives us the revelation that this is a man seriously destined for directorial greatness. His film Down by Law is one of the most entertaining pictures from the 1980s I have yet to see, bleak and fascinating, uproariously funny and darkly fixated on the inevitable and the uncertain. Permanent Vacation is a footnote, much like Linklater's It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books. An adequate, if bland, appetizer with some notes of true zest and flavor that gets you more excited for the meal than it does about the product itself.Starring: Chris Parker. Directed by: Jim Jarmusch.
inioi
Jim Jarmusch made this movie when he had probably 26 years old.Since my point of view there is no a specific script structure. It seems that he is starting to experiment some ideas and possibilities, like bizarre characters and locations in which the main character wanders.It appears that there is quite improvisation at all levels. Anyway, at the end i had the feeling that there is no much communication between viewer and director.I see it like an exercise in style.5/10
VidSteh
I'm a big fan of Jim Jarmusch, so I decided to watch his student debut Permanent Vacation, a movie about a young and lost teenager of the generation X, who is walking threw abandoned parts of the New York City, who are having a look of a ruins after the bomb attack. Now... the movie is not bad, if you're a big fan of Jarmuschs movies you should see this movie, but it's got more bad than good points. First, the movie is most of the time quite boring with really long shots of nothing. Second, the acting is not great; the main actor doesn't deliver a good performance, it feels like he doesn't feel like he wants to make a descent performance. Third, after the really good 20 minutes the movie starts to collapse with unnecessary long shots and some boring dialogs. The movie is just 71 minutes long but it feels like you're watching it for 2 hours. Now... I liked this movie because of the great beginning and because I'm a fan of Jim Jarmusch. If you're not a fan, than don't watch this. It's more like a experimental rather than a real movie. Solid debut, but with too many bad points to stay in your memory forever.
MisterWhiplash
Jim Jarmusch is a filmmaker I'll always admire and will see anything he puts out. Perhaps though my expectations of his student film, Permanent Vacation, were a little high as I thought this could be the link to Stranger Than Paradise as Who's That Knocking and Mean Streets were perfectly connected for Scorsese. This is not the case, at least from what I got from the film. It's an exercise in the mundane and plot less, a tale of a vagabond type character who may or may not be nuts, who has an insane mother, and usually just loafs around the more deconstructed and decaying parts of lower Manhattan. There are some chances for it becoming more interesting than it does, and it's really because it's a case of a filmmaker finding his footing and not getting there yet. A few bits are noteworthy in the kind of fascination that comes with watching Jarmusch's characters- like when Allie (Chris Parker) dances to the jazz record in his apartment, or the very random scene on the island. And there's a grin for a bit part for John Lurie. But there almost comes a point where the randomness becomes too diverting, and the script and (obvious) amateurs don't help matters. A monologue in a movie theater- which another commenter said was beautiful- is rambling and loses its point even as Jarmusch sorta goes back to it. Part of that scene is interesting, but it's before the monologue with the Nicholas Ray movie. Parker as an actor has that cool, quiet swagger that would be found in Stranger Than Paradise, but he also can't carry the dialog that well (particularly in the odd voice-overs). The end of the film caps it off as he just decides to leave New York City for good on a ship. This might have a little more resonance if what led up to it had one feeling much more for Parker than distance. Permanent Vacation is like a condensed, rough, patch-work example of everything that is wrong and sometimes right with Jarmusch's work, like an early demo from some rocker who hasn't quite got the gist of everything from his inspirations. What's right with the work is that it's very well shot, particularly for an ultra low-budget drama, co-DP'd by later talent Tom DiCillo. In the end, I almost found that the film was like a Godard work, though the ones really from the 80s as opposed to those of the 60s. It's got an artist's eye and the occasional touch of grace, but it's also a jumble of a sketchpad of what's really in the filmmaker's gifts. It is unique in that you can tell who made it, that it's not another write-off of a future hack. That it doesn't really spell the promise of Jarmusch's other 80's classics is harder to figure.
