Just what I expected

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Coming to NYU? Going to live in the village? Perplexed by old timers talking about 'how the village/lower east side has gentrified? Watch this in the background as you sip your mocha with soy care of gentrification. The background shots are for real. See how parts of NY looked back in the day. Serves as brilliant photo-journal as that time but with motion.I moved to to village in 1980 away from Europe and this brought back so many memories not just of the urban landscape but the characters. It was the perfect antidote to the stale suburbs and perfect environment to write, act, dance, play music, make love and generally 'Express Yo'Self!'

This one is really for Jarmusch completists only. As stated above, it is his first film and he was still a little way off being the interesting director he became. I have no problem with long slow films, but Permanent Vacation has a kind of doleful lethargy about it that transfers to the viewer. It's not helped by having the lead played by a somewhat unsympathetic and irritating teenage actor. The dialog is vague and slightly pretentious and doesn't add up to much really.I was looking forward to seeing the run-down and grotty parts of New York but the one or two derelict buildings could have been anywhere really. Little atmosphere is conjured. The photography is competent but nothing startling. No really beautiful moments - even the long credit sequence of the NY skyline slowly left behind in the boats wake seems overlong and uninteresting.Unfair I suppose to be too critical at a debut effort, but for everyone looking forward to seeing this, be prepared to be underwhelmed.

'the other's don't have planes' as he wades through rubble, on his way to a mental hospital to find his mum, yet after having gone to see some woman (gf?, sister?)who strikes up a staggeringly beautiful pose (for some reason or other), waking up on some rooftop, meeting some loony bin woman hysterical, passing by a musician on the street, meeting his Parisian other, leaving that staggeringly beautiful woman behind, getting on the boat and leaving us with a beautiful portrayal of NY in the last image. it's an apolitical film- indeed, spiritual- far from the silly pseudo-intellectual tripe of a woody allen or of the silly paranoid-race one of spike lee. one to be treasured.

This film which is, as far as I know, the first one by Jarmusch, when he still studied to become a film director, is original in its way to reinstall 'realism' – somebody would say 'surrealism' – into film art. He tries to make us understand a special psychological type of our time, a 'tourist in life' on 'permanent vacation'. People having decided to follow that life strategy don't engage themselves in anything or anyone. They just do what they 'feel like', not caring about what that means to others. Others are not really human. They are looked upon as a tourist might look upon an exotic and alien tribe.However, they themselves also feel alienated and estranged, indeed. Why engage in anything? The home where I was born was bombed out 'by the Chinese', my mother is crazy, my father is dead, and there is no hope for the future.Jarmusch is convincing in his description of this psychological type which might be typical of our time. It might be a descripton of himself. But that is not what makes the film original. It is rather the way he succeeds in making that description.Already in this film he uses stationary cameras with horizontal, and sometimes vertical, views, and depicts the world, as exemplified by New York City, as ugly as it is to all of us, if we do not embellish it.What Jarmusch has to tell might be banal to some but it is certainly something that exists and is quite difficult to make understandable to us. Exactly like the opinion of the main character. But I think he has been successful in mediating such an understanding to us who have chosen a different life strategy.