PERMANENT VACATION is Jim Jarmusch‘s first feature. It is a narrative, which follows two and a half days in the life of Aloysious Parker, a young wanderer with no home, no school, and no job. He has lived in all kinds of situations and with many different people – almost all of them exiles from the daily, working world. Now, at the age of sixteen, Allie drifts into and out of strange encounters with other misfits; always moving, always keeping just ahead of whatever it is that seems to be chasing him.
The main character is partially based on the actor portraying him (Chris Parker), whose real life situation is very similar to that of Aloysious Parker – a name Chris chose for the part. Pieces of dialog came directly from tapes that I made with Chris while writing the script, and almost all of the many back street locations in Manhattan were very familiar to him. The film attempts to merge re-created experiences with imagined ones, placing the camera somewhere in the netherworld between documentary and theatrical (neorealism in color?).
