The Limits of Control [Import]

I watched a curious movie the other night that challenged my thinking as to the significance of modern film in my life. Too often I've see fast-action, over-the-top movies as thrillers meant to provide light entertainment going into the week-end. In otherwords, disengage one's mental faculties and let the movie think for you. Titled "Limits of Control", this film attempts to look at the genre of the Hollywood box office thriller in a new light. Nothing done in this production is according to the typical standards of a blockbuster hit that contains stunts galore, plenty of larger-than-life characters and predictabe endings. For a movie buff like myself, watching this kind of production that castes the thriller as a kind of parody is challenging and enlightening at the same time. For the space of a couple of hours, the director and filmmaker, Jarmusch, takes his audience through a rather short but elaborate journey of a crime syndicate hitman on his way to take out a local crime boss in of all places, backwater Spain. There is no flashing of heavy-duty firearms or high-speed chases or identifiable landmarks to grace this picture. Instead, the man moves stealthily about his business with an air of solemn or grim determination that is sufficiently disturbing to be compelling. By a system of simple coded messages, anonymously delivered in matchboxes to a table at a sidewalk cafe, the hitman relentlessly follows instruction in his pursuit of his invisible and quarry. The crowds are sparse; the setting a back-street cul-de-sac in some Spanish provincial town; the backdrop some beautiful snow-peaked mountains; the architecture old and unassuming; the pace about as slow as you could possibly get; and the time either early in the morning or late in the evening. But all these factors help to intensify the ultimate moment in this drama. So you might ask: what is the point of this whole cinematic experiment? Is it the beginning of a new form of filming called the anti-thriller? Jim Jarmusch, I believe, has done a very able job in demonstrating that this style of movie can be effectively produced even if the effects are toned down to the point of being controlled. Productions of this sort support the old adage that you can get a lot more for a lot less in this business if you manage your resources properly. How far can this manipulation go without destroying the free-wheeling essence of the genre? Watch it and see for yourself if Jarmusch has pulled it off. Be prepared for a few comic surprises in the movie.

Anyone looking for a conventional "thriller" from Jim Jarmusch is bound to be disappointed by this film, but those who were intrigued by "Dead Man" and "Ghost Dog" will probably see this as another step toward the mathematical limit he's been moving towards -- but can never quite reach, because the ultimate Jarmusch film would move inexorably and spontaneously into absolute and eternal stillness (which of course is doubly impossible for a motion picture), but with an offbeat soundtrack. (I might say that Jarmusch is the film equivalent of Morton Feldman in classical music, but only the rare few who have listened to Feldman would get the point.)

Anyway, this DVD offers more in the way of "making-of" extras than we usually get with a Jarmusch film, and this gives us considerable insight into his working methods. As for the film itself, it makes the most of Isaach De Bankolé, whom one of the other reviewers here aptly described as stone-faced -- and if any face deserves to be sculpted on film, it's this one. (One of the little pleasures of the extras is seeing him smile, which he never gets to do in the film.) Is he a zombie programmed for a meaningless mission or the epitome of heroically dedicated self-control? Jarmusch leaves that kind of question up to you. If you're looking for answers, or for excitement, you won't find them here. What you might find is a uniquely contemplative vision of motion itself, and of a world which makes about as much or as little sense as the one we walk through every day.

Well. An important hint is given in the supplementary feature by director Jim Jarmusch. When asked about the movie, he explains it in terms of everything it's not (except the naked babe): action, explosions, chases, naked babe etc...in reality, the movie could be described as the anti-action-mystery-movie. I would have to conclude that it is intended as a parody of the type of movie he describes, or possibly as the inverse of such a movie. A stone-faced, mostly silent mystery man wends his way through Spain, exchanges mysterious matchboxes with various characters who spout banal juvenile philosophical observations approximately equivalent in depth to, for example, 'How long is a short string?' or 'How many bubbles in a bar of soap?', even though these specific examples are not used. (Jarmusch is free to use them if making a remake - I do not claim copyright). The Silent Traveler receives cryptic notes in each matchbox he receives; he glances at these notes and then eats them. I presume they give instructions to reach his next meeting - and he must be a really quick read, because I would find them very difficult to remember - where he will exchange matchboxes again, etc etc. At each of these many meetings, he is asked (in Spanish) if he speaks Spanish. Between such meetings, big black helicopters occasionally pass over or hover nearby. And yes, there are Corporate bad guys. Now what all this means, other than being an anti-movie I will not speculate, other than to make the observation that it is paralyzingly boring, rather like the Warhol movie entitled, I think, Sleep, whereupon a man is photographed sleeping for 8 hours, or 24 hours, or whatever.
I bought this movie because of some terrible opinions I heard about it (I'm like that), or maybe just because of the naked lady, and I must say I can't say I was misled.
The single star granted is for the cinematography (Christopher Doyle - he never disappoints), which is excellent and would have been worth more stars in itself but for the fact that the 'story' negated any extra stars due for the camera work.