The Limits of Control

Plot synopsis:
In an airport, Lone Man (Isaach de Bankolé) is being instructed on his mission by Creole (Alex Descas). The mission itself is left unstated and the instructions are cryptic, including such phrases as "Everything is subjective," "The universe has no center and no edges; reality is arbitrary," and "Use your imagination and your skills." After the meeting in the airport he travels to Madrid and then on to Seville, meeting several people in cafés and on trains along the way.
Each meeting has the same pattern: he orders two espressos at a cafe and waits, his contact arrives and in Spanish asks, "You don't speak Spanish, right?" in different ways, to which he responds, "No." The contacts tell him about their individual interests such as molecules, art, or film, then the two of them exchange matchboxes. A code written on a small piece of paper is inside each matchbox, which Lone Man reads and then eats. These coded messages lead him to his next rendezvous.
He repeatedly encounters a woman (Paz de la Huerta) who is always either completely nude or wearing only a transparent raincoat. She invites him to have sex with her but he declines, stating that he never has sex while he is working. One phrase that Creole, the man in the airport tells him is repeated throughout the movie: "He who thinks he is bigger than the rest must go to the cemetery. There he will see what life really is: a handful of dirt." This phrase is sung in a flamenco song in a club in Seville at one point in his journey.
In Almería, he is given a ride in a pickup truck - driven by a companion of the Mexican (Gael García Bernal) - on which the words La vida no vale nada ('life is worth nothing') are painted, a phrase Guitar (John Hurt) says to him in Seville, and he is taken to Tabernas desert. There lies a fortified and heavily guarded compound. After observing the compound from afar, he somehow penetrates its defenses and waits for his target inside the target's office. The target (Bill Murray) asks how he got in, and he answers, "I used my imagination." After the murder with a guitar string, he rides back to Madrid, where he locks away the suit he has worn throughout the movie and changes into a sweatsuit bearing the national flag of Cameroon. Before exiting the train station onto a crowded sidewalk he throws away his last matchbox.

Tags: murder

Review:
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.
You're always aware that you only see part of the picture, that everything would make sense if you could just zoom out and know a little more."The Limits of Control" plays with a lot of established film clichés, and it teases you with your expectations.
It does not care about conventions, it tells the story it wants to.However, this means that the film actually expects you to have been spoiled by the countless movies you've seen.
It helps to know a few things about film genres and eras, but it is downright essential to have seen a number of common spy movies, action flicks, mystery thrillers.
For those who have been devouring movies for some time, who know a thing or two about their strengths and weaknesses, and the way they tell stories, this film is an incredible piece of art.
Often, there is just a very poignant silence.I suppose that if you are trying to decide whether you are going to watch this movie, having heard what people say about it, you wonder whether you will be disappointed in the end, whether it will just be a succession of pointless scenes.
I really enjoy some of Jim Jarmusch's work (Night on Earth, Mystery Train and Dead Man), and I thought that I would like this film based on the story (or lack thereof) and the soundtrack, however, I was quite disappointed.
I felt myself noticing the same things over and over in various shots/scenes, because there wasn't anything else to do besides look, which made me feel like I was staring at the film more so than actually watching it.As for the soundtrack, I am a fan of some of the artists on it (Boris, Sunn, Earth, etc.), which is part of the reason I wanted to see this film initially.
In the beautiful and enigmatic The Limits of Control, director Jim Jarmusch puts it this way, "The universe has no center and no edges" and, "everything is subjective", or "reality is arbitrary".
Further instructions come from various people he meets along the way in the form of a greeting "you don't speak Spanish, right?" and the exchange of matchboxes, one of which contains a curious code which the hit man simply eats.
Included are some provocative sequences such as repeated visits to an art gallery in Madrid, and a scene inside a bar in which de Bankolé watches a rehearsal of an exquisite flamenco dance in which the singer delivers dialogue from the first scene of the film warning us like some spiritual guru about the limits of ego."Those who think they are important", he sings, "wind up in a cemetery – a handful of dust".
Finally, Bill Murray as the ugly American corporatist says that our minds have become polluted by all of the subjects that have been previously discussed.Supported by a soundtrack of electronic music by the trio Boris, The Limits of Control is a film of mystery and silence and unexpected twists that is about the power of imagination and poetry to operate without arbitrarily imposed limits.
Sensing that we are in a period of change, Jarmusch says, "I almost feel like we're really on the cusp of an apocalypse of thought because all of these old models that they tell us are reality are all crumbling." What the "apocalypse of thought" will look like is uncertain but the film has a hypnotic, dreamlike quality that challenges the distinction between what is real and what is a product of the mind.
(There are apparently no stories worth telling on a planet defined by a singer as dirt.) Rather, the movie borrows the plot lines and dialogue of film noir, the preoccupations of French art criticism, and other semi-art cinema fare, and recombines them in a heavily ironic and lushly sensual setting, (1) to draw attention to itself and (2) to comment on dreams, art, and the making of art.Does it take itself seriously?
To me, Jim Jarmusches works are all about cutting the technical nonsense to the minimum, and replacing it with powerful inner depth, such as interesting and multileveled characters - this one seemed to be the other way around.The whole thing smelt like new wave and Godard ten miles away, with the whole style, and all the references to it (for example the Spanish girl holding the gun to Bankolé's face was almost exact reference to Godard's Made in U.S.A.) - and I didn't like the scent of it one bit.
I enjoyed Dead Man a lot more and Jarmusch may have taken the slow pace and limited dialogue a tad too far in this film.
Someone needs to tell Jarmusch and like-minded directors and writers that monotone conversations about the nature/meaning/origin of so-and-so are to art films what sweaty men walking away from explosions in slow motion are to big-budget post-Bruckheimer action flicks.
He meets various people who gives him various mercurial messages.Writer/director Jim Jarmusch has created a movie of beautiful style but with little substance.
The rest of the dialogue is just the other characters attempting to have conversations with him that turn out to be almost entirely one-sided.There was some decent nudity from a large (not to mention very lop-sided} breasted woman who was pretty cute, unfortunately that's the only good thing I can say about it.Well, I've already devoted far too much time to this movie, I just hope this helps to save a bit of yours.
Film festival directors and cinema buffs are united in their devotion to such minimalist beauty, whether it be evident in the work of now-abandoned Miklos Jancso, or the best of Herzog.With THE LIMITS OF CONTROL Jarmusch has made a film directly appealing to this film fest sensibility: it answers the pointless question: what new film would Greenaway, Akerman, Raul, Wim & Aki want to see?
In the very dull & sycophantic "making of" docu on the DVD Jim is explicit in his rant about the importance of repetition and his foolish claim that nothing is original, all stories have been done already, only variations are possible, but in the final product LIMITS OF CONTROL is way too close to Peter Greenaway's trademark approach to cinema.
Jim's apologist fans (the LAST thing he needs!) have already littered IMDb with comments on the zen-like nature of LIMITS, but its endlessly repeated guest star dialog is rather on the level of "Confusius say..." instead.From an early supporter and fellow Ohioan, I say: it's time to pull your socks up Jim (to paraphrase my favorite Physics professor's Britishism tag line from college).
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.
There is not much talking, it is OK, but there is not much meaning in the story either.Every movie can have a big mystery but if there is a big gap behind this mystery (like this film), it is much worse than being mysterious.
It is not always easy, but I usually try to consider the intention of a movie in order to appreciate it or evaluate it with a bigger objectivity.Under that criterion, some movies of a questionable quality deserve extra points if they at least fulfill with their purpose, independently of their intrinsic pros and cons.That was exactly what I was thinking while I was watching The Limits of Control even though I do not consider it to be of a questionable quality (all the contrary, in fact), because I could not see the point of the film for a long time, until it came the moment in which I understood what director and screenwriter Jim Jarmusch was trying to say, and it became into a fascinating experience in the whole, at the same time I noticed that every scene has a point in here.Anyway, The Limits of Control is definitely not a movie for everyone, and it will be highly divisive; however, I consider that as one of the best elements of the movie, because it does not leave any place for the indifference.As I said, everything in this movie makes sense and has a logic, and we notice it when we reach a specific moment.I do not think it is convenient to see The Limits of Control as a typical thriller told in three acts; in fact, I would consider it as an excellent work of art which was designed to challenge the spectator, invite to the reflection and generate questions, but without bringing answers.The fact that a movie provokes all that is worthy of admiration, by my point of view.Examining The Limits of Control in the context of Jarmusch's filmography, some parallels with Dead Man could be found, but I prefer to describe it as the other face of Ghost Dog, which I consider to be his best movie.In that film, we had also found a philosophical murderer, but while Ghost Dog externalized his spirituality for practical purposes, the anonymous main character from The Limits of Control internalizes everything, leaving us with the constant doubt about his methods and motivation.That is a truly provocative focus, because it invites us to interpret the meaning of every scene, of every detail.And something which is also a positive element from this film is the cast, because we have solid performances from Isaach De Bankolé, Tilda Swinton, Paz de la Huerta, Gael García Bernal, John Hurt, Youki Kudoh and the great Bill Murray (even though that, with the exception of Bankolé, all their roles could be practically considered as cameos).I will repeat what I said on the first paragraph: The Limits of Control is not a movie for everyone.Personally, I liked it very much, but I perfectly understand why some people could hate it.By my point of view, this was a fascinating experience which made me to analyze it in order to totally understand it.And that is something I wish more movies would cause on me..
As a result, the film is limited to a long series of film quotes (film noir, yakuza movie, road movie, political plots, reference to Hitchcock etc) and involuntary repetitions (how many times does the character open and close his jacket?).Let me conclude this comment abruptly, as I don't think a serious analysis can be made of such an unfinished movie.PS : As I was surprised by the number of extremely enthusiastic comments, I took the opportunity to read Jarmusch's interview about this film.
It's quite sad actually that things have gone that wrong for Jim Jarmusch that he now makes absolutely crappy movies like The Limits of Control.
The character we follow lives only on double coffees, Tai-Chi and small pieces of paper while on a mission, trying to portray a man in control of the self - a control so complete as to not need food, sex or sleep; yet quickly lost when served the wrong coffee.Portraying these few only traits possessed by the character is blundered by the main actor, a weak performance that is mirrored by several other cast members, including, disappointedly, Bill Murray.
The beauty of this movie will surely be miss that way.Limits has a simple but somewhat original plot: a lone assassin (Isaach de Bankolé) is given secret clues on different steps to take in order to reach his target and carry out his mission; however, it is up to him to discover which clues are authentic and which ones are false.
Jim Jarmusch's 2008 film THE LIMITS OF CONTROL concerns a nameless hit-man (Isaach De Bankole) as he prepares to carry out an assassination in Spain.
THE LIMITS OF CONTROL feels like a cinematic analogue to the late albums of Scott Walker, where the songs' characters, cultural references and "plot" only serve to express some burning flame in the artist's own psyche.Jim Jarmusch has always stated that his aesthetic is to absorb everything he can from prior films (and books, music, etc.) and let those inspirations reflect in his own films.
This is the kind of movie you can discuss and think about for a very Long time if you are able to open up your mind.What we get in here are in fact many stunning landscapes that almost look like paintings.
If you're intrigued by my Review, watch this movie at all costs but if you think what i've just written sounds too strange you won't like this film..
What makes a movie really unwatchable is if it is thoroughly uninteresting, which is what Limits of Control is doubtlessly guilty of being.From the first scene, where two men speak to each other through a translator who does not understand the conversation, Limits of Control hails itself as postmodern with the line "Reality is subjectiveReality is arbitrary," From there, the film simply proceeds to tick off a list of stereotypical postmodern themes: subjectivity of reality/human experience, an inability to communicate with others, feeling isolated from the rest of humanity, a plot that refuses to make itself logical to its audience, etc.
It is basically a rather boring movie only interesting for die hard Jim Jarmusch fans, like myself .
Isaach De Bankole, the unabashed center of this movie's cyclical universe, stands firmly on the farthest cut-off point of control of which the modern man is likely capable, so deeply ingrained in his daily algorithms that in spite of being involved in whatever one can make of what he inches closer and closer to each day, each cycle of his self-imposed limitation.
Whatever occupation might engender the clandestine, almost theatrically affected fine points of his routine, which would lead to what it finally leads to, it is something this lone, anonymous stoic not only does but is, in the most distilled possible form.Jim Jarmusch's remarkably, painstakingly subjective film, which requires the most open and accepting approach one is likely to find oneself able to offer, is in fact solid proof that cinema has a metaphysical effect.
Despite the fact that I get absolutely nothing out of Jarmusch's most famous film, Dead Man, and The Limits of Control is very similar in structure in many ways, I have now been roped into the Jarmusch cult as if a young colt into a corral for branding.Tentatively, I am prepared to impute meaning to this film, although a lot of people have imbibed this movie as a purely aesthetic experience, which is a perfectly legitimate approach.
Whereas I felt Dead Man fell foul of that, being overly ostentatious with it's cameos, with the Limits of Control I never felt that I was watching celebrities as opposed to characters.You may have heard that the Lone Man is a professional killer, true, but I wouldn't really worry about that, if you approach the movie as genre, you will find yourself climbing a glass wall.
If you're a Psychedelic Socialist you'll love this movie.What I like about Jim Jarmusch's film is that his surrealism is just the right dose of strangeness to keep me interested when it seems there is little or no action.
What it is is a series of fragments and dreams, characters, places and encounters, more like Coffee & Cigarettes than Ghost Dog. But it's lots of fun, for cinema lovers and for art lovers, and it's incredibly beautiful (a given with a Jim Jarmusch film), and for a movie in which nothing ever really happens, it keeps the viewer interested the whole time; that in itself is an accomplishment..
On the first viewing it's probably best to just enjoy the scenes as they come without trying to figure out all the hidden references at once; solving the mystery can be saved for later rewatches.The numerous supporting characters don't stay in the picture for long, but even the short roles are very convincingly acted by acclaimed stars like Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray and Gael García Bernal.
Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control is probably one of the most divisive films I can think of in recent history.
Much like Jarmusch's Ghost Dog, Limits of Control is a an almost meditative, zen-like movie experience.
The Limits of Control : A 'Jim Jarmusch' film meant strictly for his admirers..
Although it boasts of a star cast which can be hailed as the 'Who's Who of the world cinema, The Limits of Control is a film with which only admirers of Jim Jarmusch would be content.
Even though there is almost no dialogue, you cannot be sure of what's happening and none of the characters are really developing, I was never bored and my curiosity grew with the minute...in the end though, my wish was ignored.I enjoyed the quality of filming and the feel this movie carries.
It was slow, had a gentle story, played with the imagination of the audience, was concentrating on beautiful pictures and at every moment showed a tough piece of reality.And now this: Jim Jarmush makes himself look like a 20 year old student who is staggering through a few fragments of new ideas, creating unnecessary (bohemian) figures, that approach the main character out of nowhere, babble about art, science, movies, music and all follow the same uninspired scheme.
I believe Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control could be one of these films, a masterpiece until proved otherwise.