Night on Earth

Night on Earth (1991) takes place on the same night in five cities. We watch one taxi ride each in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki. The episodes do not connect; all they share is a driver, a passenger and an enclosed car. The idea is simple and effective: a taxi is the one place where two people who do not know each other are obliged to talk for a fixed period. Jarmusch turns that obligation into a different register each time; Los Angeles is a job interview, Rome is a confession, Helsinki is grief. The clocks in the five cities are shown together at the start, and the film never lets you forget the simultaneity. Each episode has its own cast: Winona Ryder and Gena Rowlands in Los Angeles, Giancarlo Esposito and Armin Mueller-Stahl in New York, Béatrice Dalle in Paris, Roberto Benigni in Rome, Matti Pellonpää in Helsinki. Tom Waits wrote the music and it carries the transitions between them. It runs 129 minutes. Good for: episodic storytelling, Jarmusch, and conversation driven character work. Less good for: the episodes are not of equal quality, and the Rome section sits in a comic register entirely separate from the rest. There is no plot. At 129 minutes the structure is stretched and some episodes sag before they end.