And while we don’t know much about Roberto, we do learn that he knows how to escape from the prison, and the men eventually do.
At this point it would be easy to describe the movie as a “prison break” film, but it’s not. Sure, the men escape from a prison, but what this prison break actually does is set the men free, in the real sense of leaving the confines of imprisonment, and free in the sense that they now have another chance at their lives. What will they do with this freedom? Who knows? They could very well be caught again. But I think the point that Jarmusch is trying to make is that Zack, Jack and Roberto have freed themselves from their former lives, and now have a second chance at life.
Jarmusch fills the film with visual and verbal refrains, creating the atmosphere and connecting characters together in a very natural way. Music is an important part of that refrain (after all, Zack was a DJ), and the use of music creates a canvas for the characters to live their lives.
The prison scenes serve as a visual refrain to represent the passing of time. Time passes very slowly in prison, and we’re made aware of that fact in that we never leave the prison cell of Zack, Jack and Roberto. But the prison scenes can also serve as a metaphor for life: for many of us, our lives are made up of little moments, some significant, some not. We pass the time in doing the things that help to pass the time. I think Jarmusch is trying to illustrate that in all the moments of our lives, nothing is trivial. What is important is the fact that we live our lives, not necessarily what we do with our lives.
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