The slow pace, the lingering visuals, the sparse dialogue, even the self-referential humor, I really enjoyed all of it. I knew where we were headed and I enjoyed the journey, even the title gave me food for thought. (Chalk one up for “imagination.”)
On occasion, it did glimmer with the feeling of the whole thing being an elaborate and filmic exercise in the art of stripping a story down to next to nothing, and occasionally parts felt almost trying too hard to be, maybe a little too constructed and falling into cliche. I chose to interpret these as little self aware inside jokes. As for the storytelling, absolutely minimal is where I like to be. And the cinematic visuals tip the scale for me, in favor of the directors skill.
If you’re a real movie buff or even a film afficionado, I can see why you dislike Jim Jarmusch’s offering. I however liked it a lot, probably in direct inverse proportion to the amount I dislike the types of items on a movie buff’s regular list.