1989 · Movie
Mystery Train
Three separate stories are told, they primarily tied together by the stories' main subjects each staying at the same seedy Memphis hotel on the same night without knowing about the others. In "Far from Yokohama", eighteen year olds Jun and Mitzuko, a couple from Yokohama, are traveling on a budget, this trip a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the hot spots of their favorite 1950 and 1960's American rock musicians. About and in Memphis, they, with only Mitzuko knowing basic and very broken English and Jun knowing none, argue about whether to listen to and visit the places associated with his or her favorite - Carl Perkins versus Elvis Presley - while they also discuss whether Memphis is similar to Yokohama. In "A Ghost", Dee Dee and Luisa decide to share a room for the night out of circumstance, they not even having known each other until meeting in the hotel lobby. Dee Dee is escaping town in the break-up with her British "husband", Johnny, he often called Elvis in only slightly channeling the King in his looks, while Luisa is on an unexpected one day layover as she tries to make her way home to Rome. They may be sharing a room with a third, at least from Luisa's perspective, that third who may be a manifestation of the issue of the dead that has pervaded her stay in town. And in "Lost in Space", Johnny, Dee Dee's "husband", is rescued by Charlie, Dee Dee's barber brother, and their mutual friend Will who believe drunk Johnny may be a threat to himself or others, Charlie and Will unaware of the issue of Dee Dee having run off. From an incident, they take refuge in the hotel until morning - Will having chosen this hotel for a specific reason - when they hope the issues surrounding that incident will have died down.
