At the Cannes Film Festival this past spring, where Broken Flowers won the Grand Prize, Jim Jarmusch was heard lamenting the suggestions that this was his most audience friendly film to date. He would be pleased to hear, then, the reports recently related to me by a local cinema employee of audiences leaving a theater en masse, many in pursuit of refunds, all because: The Film Isn't Funny.

What were they expecting, I wonder? I suppose any misguided anticipation might have bolstered by those critics who said that the film was commercial. How I wish that, by 'commercial,' they simply meant 'excellent!' Instead, I must assume they're simply referring to the presence of Bill Murray, around whom a cultural zeitgeist of sorts has formed. Everyone knows he's a great actor now, thanks largely to Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation and the efforts of Wes Anderson; but didn't anyone actually see these films? Don't they have an idea of what to expect? Or do they think Murray's career upswing is due to his voice work in Garfield?

In a perfect world, everyone would have seen Lost In Translation and The Life Aquatic and the other Anderson films, and they would see Broken Flowers, and whether or not they liked the films, they would appreciate them. In a perfect world, Jarmusch would have no reason to be so afraid of the American mainstream and its connotations. Unfortunately, though, those connotations are both correct and longstanding, and thus it is that the mass exodus of theater patrons is, in a perverse and paradoxical manner, a sign of success for a film like this one. Conversely, it is a condemnation of American culture, which at large is dismissing a great film from a great filmmaker, one that is, indeed, very funny.

The key to Jarmusch's work, though, is his mastery of tone; much humor can be found in a film like Broken Flowers, but one must know were to find it (no looking required, though). Here is a filmmaker will never let a joke play out for its own sake in a context that does not demand it. A scene might be funny in theory, but within a given film and played out by the film's characters, one might find it taking on unexpected dimensions. For example: a running theme throughout Jarmusch's oveure is the nature of an alien travelling in a foreign land - the Japanese kids exploring in Memphis in Mystery Train, the Polish girl and her New Yorker cousin standing on the Florida beaches in Stranger Than Paradise, the old world ethics in the modern environs of Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai, and now Bill Murray's character in this film. This narrative interest naturally creates ample opportunity for fish-out-of-water predicaments, but Jarmusch's characters are almost always separated from the world around them, existing awkwardly as best they can, not always succeeding. Resultingly, there's often a pervasive sense of loneliness and disconnection that mitigates any humor.

In Broken Flowers, Murray plays Don Johnston, an aging playboy on a road trip, drifting listlessly across the landscapes of a world he's excluded himself from and digging up old loves long buried in an attempt to discover if he is, as various circumstance have lead him to believe, the father of a nineteen year old son. The son is the MacGuffin of the plot; I cannot spoil whether or not he exists, for the answer can't be summed up with a simple yes or no, and it doesn't really matter, as it is the possibility of his existence that is important to the film. On a basic level, it allows Don to take the trip that provides the film its structure; more substantively, it gives Don the opportunity to take himself into consideration. There's a scene early in the film, when he's first setting out on his journey, that in many ways is as telling as any of the things that happen to him while he's on it. Sitting in the back of an airport shuttle, Don observes two teenage girls whispering excitedly to each other about a handsome young passenger. He sees this young man again moments later when they're both wandering through a rental car lot. They exchange a nod. The young man isn't Don's son, but the realization that he could be, that he's the right age, that he draws these girls' eyes, is a quietly overwhelming one: this aging Don Juan is looking at what he has ceased to be and understanding for the first time that he's been eclipsed by a generation he may have unintentionally contributed to.

This moment of discovery is not something that is spelled out or spoken of in any way, or referenced specifically anywhere in the rest of the film; it is the sort of scene one could easily miss during a trip to the bathroom. Its meaning must be intuited, and though that meaning is open to interpretation, that Jarmusch put the scene in the film in the first place precludes the possibility that it is meaningless. He is not the type of director who might waste a moment, or even a single shot; and thus no moment or shot should be taken for granted. Don comes to many such quiet understandings throughout the film, which is not about him changing his ways, but his arrival at a point where he realizes he might need to think about changing.

Jarmusch's style is one of passive (but not impassive) observation; his films are carefully put together, but have a deceivingly lackadaisical tone to them, accentuated by his wide, static shots that sometimes last for the duration of a scene. On occasion, though, his directorial hand swoops in. In the closing moments of Broken Flowers, the camera moves, suddenly, almost shockingly. This motion implies that a culmination has been reached, a direction implied, and all of the little moments or scenes that seemed inconsequential can suddenly be seen as having been building towarsd a whole. This ending is perfect and beautiful. It is not funny, and perhaps the audience demographic that is inspired by this denouement to claim a refund feels cheated of a punchline to something they mistook for a joke.

What is it about American moviegoers that makes them prone to reject a quintessentially American filmmaker like Jarmusch, who finances all his films through foreign investors? Consider what the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote in his BFI volume on Dead Man: "When I was in Japan in December 1999, I was fascinated to discover how prominently displayed the videos for Jarmusch's early features were in the shops I visited - during which time Stranger Than Paradise, fifteen years after its initial release, was listed as a best seller." What's wrong with this picture? Are Americans really so afraid of having to think to understand that not only might a film be funny, but that it can be so much more than that at the same time? It is with some regret that I find myself indicting an impersonal audience, rather than waxing further the film I wish they shared my opinion of. While I admire and love Jarmusch's endearing punk rock perspective on commercialism, I also wish he was wrong.