One of Empire's picks for Cannes last year, Jim Jarmusch's vampire tale Only Lovers Left Alive has been on the festival circuit ever since. Now, pending its proper release in the UK next month, a new teaser trailer has arrived, showcasing Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton and Mia Wasikowska on bloodied, fang-bearing form.
Jarmusch describes Only Lovers Left Alive as "an unconventional love story". Swinton (in her third outing for the director following Broken Flowers and The Limits Of Control) and underground-musician Hiddleston are a centuries-old couple who reunite in Detroit following Swinton's solo sojourn in Tangier. But their jaded peace is broken with the arrival of Wasikowska as Swinton's uncontrollable younger sister, who makes it almost impossible for her elders to maintain their dark existence in secrecy.
As revealed by our first reaction, however, this is (unsurprisingly) much more an idiosyncratic Jarmusch film than a typical blood-and-thunder vampire yarn.
"It's the story of two exceptional outsiders who, given their unusual circumstances, have a vast overview of human and natural history, including stunning achievements and tragic and brutal failures," says the director. "[The Lovers] are themselves metaphors for the present state of human life. They are fragile and endangered, susceptible to natural forces, and to the shortsighted behavior of those in power."
Joining Swinton, Hiddleston and Wasikowska are John Hurt, Anton Yelchin and Jeffrey Wright, and Only Lovers Left Alive will be drawing blood in the UK from February 21. The full trailer, which has been online for a while, is below.