The Limits of Control

I guess for Jim Jarmusch, the shot, not the characters or the narrative is the building block and center of the film. Each shot is almost a minor Magritte painting with some detail incongruous enough to make us chuckle or wonder WTF. Why does the lead character order two cups of espresso? Why does the character wear those too tight shiny suits? What is the meaning of the constant exchanging of match boxes? This movie could be called "Match boxes and coffee" instead of "Cigarettes and Coffee," an even slower movie Jarmusch. The narrative is without excitement or tension. For a brief moment I had hoped that Jarmusch would pick up the pace when the hero saw the armed camp/complex. I thought the hero would race down and shoot ten or twenty men and jump out of the way of army jeeps and bound over walls to get inside. Nope, not this movie. Jarmusch just has the character appear inside the complex in the next scene and mysteriously hint at the way he got in. The movie does pick up in about five or six scenes with Paz De La Huerta. She is just called Nude and she appears in a series of what seems like nude poses. It is quite erotic and does make the first half of the picture move entertaining. There is also a nice dialogue scene about Orson Welles "Lady from Shanghai." These are the highlights of the film for me ten minutes watching Paz De La Huerta act without clothes, a discussion of "Lady from Shanghai" and those too tight shiny suits. Amusing, but too laid back.

The "storyline": Nothing much happens at all. A man in Madrid orders an espresso, takes a train, walks in and out of a spanish museum in madrid, walks around town in madrid. No drama, no humor, just a man wandering about in Madrid getting secretive messages from strange secretive people

Despite the failure to create drama, humor or suspense this movie still kept me curious about it's ending. I did enjoy it, but in the same way as I would enjoy watching landscapes pass by in the train. Soothing, mellow, calm. But for those who expect a story with some drama, my advice is to walk away. Only suited for die hard Jim Jarmusch fans. This is definitely NOT a typical gangster movie, although some might (wrongly) perceive it to be, having watched the trailer.

I really adore (some of) Jim Jarmusch' work. But I do get bored by some of his movies as well. Jarmusch has a great knack for telling stories about people, who just wander about. Really. That's all they usually do in his movies. All of his movies are about people wandering around searching for something, waiting for something, escaping from something. Walking, waiting, wandering around. He has perfected these "wandering" storylines. He always slows his movies down to a level which is very uncommon and sometimes bordering on boring. The latter unfortunately is the case with "No limits No controls". It is basically a rather boring movie only interesting for die hard Jim Jarmusch fans, like myself . It is suited for those who love to relate to 100 year old paintings or movies no one has ever heard of beside an incrowd of movie geeks.

Soundtracks in Jarmusch'movies are always eccentric. The music by "Boris" is impressive, edgy and heavy, but I felt it wasnt suited for the mood of this picture. The photography was lacking in originality, although some shots were very gorgeous, because of the beauty of Madrid. BUT the photography was almost entirely consisting of still shots, which were mostly not very impressive. Director Wes Anderson has perfected this still photography in his movies, many others have tried to copy it, but failed at it. So did the photographer in "No limits No control".

Acting is great though. Great leading actor, which I had never heard of before. What a powerful face. He indeed doenst have to say anything, which he doesnt. Almost a silent movie, little to none dialogue. But it works. It creates some kind of mystery. Another trade mark of Jim Jarmusch. And there is also a great supporting cast although they only appear very short: Bill Murray (3minutes), John Hurt (5minutes), Abbass (5 minutes), Tilda Swinton (only 15 seconds), being pushed inside a car...

Trivia endnote: The end credits mention "Quantum respect and broken flowers to Bart Walker". This Bart Walker fellow is one of the most thanked characters in movie history, because the man has a staggering 30 special thanks credits to his name at Imdb. He must be some sort of mysterious muse for Jim Jarmusch and other directors, because many great directors have thanked this Bart Walker guy many times over the last decades.

I'm not going to waste anyone's time with subjective yammering, whether it be positive ("a cinematic tour de force!") or negative ("pretentious artsy fluff!") because, let's face it, those comments don't mean squat to anyone but the person saying it.

Instead, just rifle through this list of movies and if you liked any of them, you'll probably like this movie.

"Tetro" (director Francis Ford Coppola, 2009), "Broken Flowers" (director Jim Jarmusch, 2005), "Before It Had a Name" (director Giada Colagrande, 2005), "A Scene at the Sea" (director Takeshi Kitano, 1991), "Der Himmel über Berlin" a.k.a. "Wings of Desire" (director Wim Wenders, 1987), "Paris, Texas" (director Wim Wenders, 1984).

If you haven't heard of, or seen, any of those then just bear in mind that "Limits of Control", like the movies mentioned above, is very slow, almost uneventful, without a lot of revealing dialogue to carry the story. These stories are told in images, and it can be a real challenge keeping up, not because there are a lot of crazy twists and turns, but because there's almost nothing. I could sum up the plot of this movie in 8 words: "a day in the life of a hit-man". But if you're up for a challenge, give it a shot.

Why Jim Jarmush? Why? Why did you of all directors have to produce such a dud? Why couldn't you have passed on that burden to a director without your prowess or your imagination? I thought we had a good thing going here. You make awesome movies and I watch them. It's a virtually flawless system. But no. You had to go and make The Limits of Control, a painfully pointless and stagnant film with no plot, no purpose, and no emotion. It follows a lone man as he searches for... something. There's no telling what, as the film has no backstory. It really has no story for that matter. This nameless man travels Europe, meeting various people and having vague conversations about nothing with them, only to receive a matchbox with a piece of paper in it at the end of every conversation. The man then proceeds to eat the paper. Any synopsis I could write about this film will make no sense and, unfortunately, seeing the film won't clear anything up.

This is such an utterly pointless film. It is incredibly experimental to a Lynchian degree, but Lynch always wraps up his films with a point. His films have a sense of purpose and meaning, and they get somewhere. The Limits of Control does not. We begin and end the film equally confused as to what is going on at all. The film does have a intriguing auteur look to it, accompanied by a great soundtrack and overall eerie pacing. But these nice things can only care a plot less story so far. The visual quality of the film begins as something compelling to look at and to absorb, but slowly becomes a very boring excuse for art film style visuals.

I think what really irks me about this film is just how serious it takes itself, and how profound it thinks it is. The film is incredibly pretentious and every conversation and every long, drawn-out, pointless scene is more self-indulgent that the previous. The film wants you to believe that there is some greater meaning to what it is all saying, but it's all just the ramblings of a pretentious goof. This is a film that insults our intelligence, as it isn't difficult to see past the faux profundities to the self-important nonsense that this film really is.

And what's even worse is how much the film tries to lead you on. It is alright to begin a film with no real backstory, throwing us right in the middle of the action. The Ancient Greeks invented the idea in the first place calling it in medias res, so I have no opposition to that. What I'm not okay with is films that just go in circles, never resolving anything and never filling us in on necessary backstory, or helping us out with the story at all for that matter. This isn't a thinking film in which we have to decipher the clues we are given by the characters and the story. There are no clues and this is a completely braindead film that thinks it has a brain that is smarter than all of us. Well, it's wrong. It's not intelligent, just pretentious.

I think the one place I can find solace in my despair over how bad this film was is that it doesn't give the impression that Jim Jarmush has forgotten how to make movies. That is a thought I reserve for films that are just bad in every way. The Limits of Control is Jarmush trying something different and new, but just failing miserably. It's really no more than a failed experiment, and I hope Jarmush realizes this. I hope he doesn't feel like he succeeded in making The Limits of Control a progressive and compelling film that transcends all cinematic boundaries. I hope that he has enough sense to realize he dropped a stinking pretentious mess on us and that he will have to clean it up if he wants to gain back some respect.

I was thinking that this was the abstract baby Lost in Translation and The American had, and just like that Bill Murray eventually makes an appearance. The way he looked at the skull on his desk really made me smile.

The reason I watched this movie was because of Boris & Sunn O)))'s contribution to the soundtrack, and that was the only reason. Well, I was in for it! Personally I don't think this drone / doom metal soundtrack fits this movie, or almost any movie, but surely I am biased. And perhaps I've just listened too much to the songs beforehand so that I find they are too cut down, repetitive and out of place here. Boris's music worked in Kokuhaku, though.

Also, did I get what The Limits of Control was about? Not overall, and I didn't like the unrealistic dialogues. It made the dominating silence in the movie seem more meaningless and less thought-provoking. Still, having random (famous) people ramble on about long-winded, ambiguous and quite irrelevant topics didn't lack charm (I'm not being completely sarcastic, especially in John Hurt's case). But hey, it is a very symbolic and long-dragged movie that shrouds its various points with mystery. It is a full-blown "show, don't tell" piece of film. Make what you will of it; I was entertained throughout but I did not arrive at any satisfactory conclusion.

However, the wavering of the camera in the last second of the movie had me wondering. Did I limit this movie?