Paterson. A Movie About the Poetry of Small Things.

I was curious about Jim Jarmusch's recently released movie, Paterson. In the first place as it deals with a poet and poetry, and secondly because I truly loved his Only Lovers Left Alive, starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston.

Jarmusch's mood permeate his movies in a unique way. The atmosphere is always the real thing even in his Paterson. The movie deals with an apparently simple story, the life of a bus driver, whose name is Paterson just like the small NJ town where he lives. We follow him as he wakes up every week day, goes to work carrying his lunch box and a notepad in his jacket, where he pens his poems before starting his daily rides or, after dinner, as he walks his dog to the pub to drink his daily beer. Life is simple, filled with the poetry of small things such as a box of matches that inspires him to write a love poem.

In this small town Paterson and his wife, Laura, are clearly not the average people. Despite routine they both strive to pursue some form of art, whether it be writing or decorating anything compulsively, as Laura does, from shower curtains, to clothes, to cupcakes. Laura keeps Paterson anchored to reality, but sometimes he fails to listen to her suggestions and this will lead to the doom of losing his most beloved object. But, this is the karma that changes things, the turning point that leads to an apparently fleeting encounter. As the name of the main character and movie suggest, we cannot forget that one of the movie's tributes is to the poetry of William Carlos Williams and to his well known "no ideas but in things." Even after a great loss, gifts happen and these turn into lines.

Paterson is a precious little gem for poetry lovers and for anyone with the disposition of appreciating life's small things.



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