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34 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
Original debut, 7 November 1998
5/10
Author: Bo Larsson from Stockholm, Sweden

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.

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14 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
as tedious as it is beautifully filmed, without form and very much the student film, 2 August 2006
5/10
Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

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.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Assured first film, 21 June 2009
7/10
Author: christopher-underwood from Greenwich - London

Assured first film from Jarmusch is pretty tough viewing to begin with. Slow moving or not moving at all and ponderous, seeming inconsequential dialogue but then somewhere along the line we find ourselves captivated. Beautifully shot with ugly/beautiful still shots of back streets of New York. Apart from a scene showing the lead guy spray painting a sub title for the film and thereby seeming to plant the film within the late 70s or 80s, the rest of the 'action' gives more the impression of taking place in the late 60s/early 70s. It may well be that Jarmusch has not set the film in the past but that his cinematic influences are from that period. In any event this is well worth a watch and as with all the man's films there is a fiercely compassionate element. Even when the characters appear completely unappealing, we are somehow encouraged to feel some degree of empathy.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Permanent Vacation, 13 June 2008
7/10
Author: hobokeninterzone (hobokeninterzone@hotmail.com) from Slovenia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

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.

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6 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
A Brilliant Debut, 7 November 2005
7/10
Author: Mark Gubarenko from Russian Federation

I've bought today a full collection of Jarmusch movies on DVD. Before this one i've seen only 3 latest films directed by him (excluding Broken Flowers). So i've decided to begin my friendship with Jim from this movie. This' Jarmusch first feature presentation. Young boy is bored of his way of living and decided to do something. That's all! Film's countdown is 2.5 days. In this 2.5 days Parker walking through the city, talking to unknown peoples. Maybe this may sound very uninteresting, but believe me the plot is great for debut. But the genius part is Parker's monologue in the beginning. Jarmusch visions are stable for long 25 years. Picture structure in every film. The movie is worth watching it, but in fact the most ugliest thing is actor play.

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1 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Permanent ennui, 17 June 2009
6/10
Author: Karl Self from Yurp

Let's not put too much lipstick on this pig. Permanent Vacation ... cool title, memorable lead, nice style and all that, but ultimately an often boring movie. The only thing that keeps this above the water is the simple fact that director Jim Jarmusch followed it up with some of the best movies of all time. So it's cool to see him blunder his way through his first oeuvre.

The fact that our hero Allie is disenfranchised because his mother is in a mental institution might constitute the oldest plot device in the book. There is really no development, no suspense, nothing intriguing. Jarmusch commits the classic mistake of every first-time filmmaker; he has yet to learn that it's not enough to put a crass character before the camera. You have to make the viewer care about him. And unfortunately you can't do that by boring the crap out of the viewer. Allie is a high-strung, messed-up kid who could franchise disenfranchisement if only he could be bothered. He has a girlfriend that should rightfully be mine, who gets a kick out of dating a pretentious freeloader with a croaky voice. He meets a bunch of strange people, nicks a car, then gets the feck out on a boat. Cue amazing end sequence shot on a boat going away from Manhattan but looking back at it.

Check it out if you're a spotty movie boffin with no social life.

Give it a miss if you're more into Hannah Montana.

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4 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
staggeringly beautiful movie, 20 December 2004
10/10
Author: monsieurblob (monsieurblob@hotmail.com) from ulan bator, mongolia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

'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.

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7 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
worth it in retrospect, 25 February 2005
5/10
Author: ej-35 from Canada

This film was a little hard to get through, although my jet-lag probably contributed to this. It did have that student film quality to it and the "permanent vacation" line was bad. I could have done without the poorly executed voice over, the content of which contributed to an amateurish nature.

Then again, is immaturity necessarily a bad thing in movies? Perhaps in this one it perfects the depressed pretentious adolescent mood, whether intentional or not. This feeling and certain images from the film, dancing, the apartment, the girl (especially), the mother, the destroyed landscape, have stayed with me this past week ... a good sign. Not one for the impatient viewer.

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7 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
great film, 20 March 2002
10/10
Author: (dooleyben@hotmail.com) from London, England

The monologue in the middle of this film is just about the most beautiful story I have ever heard. The only fault in the whole of this film is the point at the end where he says "I guess I'm just... on a Permanent Vacation, " and the fault here is really the actor's for overplaying this line, not Jarmusch's.

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16 out of 60 people found the following comment useful :-
Yawn, 5 December 2004
Author: jlon from Dublin

Debut feature from Jarmusch.

A young jazz fan wanders through Manhattan and meets some messed-up characters.

Boring movie that contains some of the director's trademarks: long takes, cool characters, cigarettes and mundane dialogue ("I want to buy some popcorn"). Only worth viewing if you're a fan of the film maker (I'm not). Movie resembles a student project. Note the Nick Ray poster at the cinema. Low production values - in some scenes you can hear noise from the camera.

Permanent Vacation is an interesting but dull movie.

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