By Eric Fell
for MovieSet.com
‘The Limits of Control‘ is a film in which anything that could be of interest to the viewer happens between the edits. It’s like writer-director Jim Jarmusch has told us that he’s too cool to tell a story. Some might see this disregard for the audience as abstract and stylish, but here it simply comes off as tedious.
Tilda Swinton and Isaach De Bankolé in The Limits of Control
The plot is spartan to the point of being nonexistent. Isaach De Bankole plays a man, perhaps a diamond smuggler, who is hired to… well, it’s not made clear. Not even remotely. He is referred to in the end credits as “The Lone Man,” and that’s all we get.
The Lone Man travels to Madrid on this nebulous assignment, and the next 45 minutes are a series of encounters at a coffee shop. Someone sits down, talks for about two minutes on a particular subject (music, science, film, etc), and leaves a matchbox for him. He says nothing. He opens the matchbox, reads a coded message on a piece of paper, eats it, then goes back to his apartment. This sequence of events repeats itself for three quarters of an hour. The only break in the routine is the sudden appearance of Paz de la Huerta as a naked woman (she’s credited as “The Nude”) who does nothing more than sit in The Lone Man’s apartment and pout.
Paz de la Huerta as "The Nude" in The Limits of Control
What does The Nude have to do with the rest of the movie? I found myself asking that of every single character who pops up for two minutes, spouts faux-intellectual garbage, and disappears. Among the cameos (and they are nothing more than cameos, despite being billed on the DVD cover) are John Hurt, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton.
The performances of the actors are fine, given the fact that there are no conversations in the movie. There’s no way to react off of anyone, least of all De Bankole, who has one facial expression and manages to utter about a dozen words in two hours.
Christopher Doyle’s camerawork is fluid and lyrical, and his constant pushing in on De Bankole threatens the audience with the notion that something might actually happen. Unfortunately, nothing ever does.
At about an hour into the movie, I found myself craving caffeine. A thought occurred to me: was Jarmusch teasing me? Is he really some sort of fraud in league with Big Coffee? How else could one explain a movie in which the protagonist spends a full two thirds of the movie sitting in a chair drinking espressos, while the other third is made up of endless shots of him staring at things, daring us to stay awake? Of course, that’s not the case. That would be interesting.
The second hour keeps the promise of nothingness made by the first part of the film. There are moments, however, where you think something is going to happen. It then cuts to a new scene that takes place after the thing may (or may not) have happened.
The final shot of the film has the camera falling over, as if it grew tired of following The Lone Man on his quest of… whatever the hell it was. The camera definitely kept its interest longer than I did.
Director Jim Jarmusch on set of "The Limits of Control"
The experience of watching The Limits of Control is about the same as listening to an art-school hipster who thinks he’s far smarter than he actually is talk about the nature of the universe. I would say it’s identical, except Jarmusch’s movie doesn’t reek of Pabst Blue Ribbon. At least it’s got that going for it.
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One Comment
I heard that Tilda Swinton has a live-in younger lover and is very sexual. I think she’s a babe but that she also focuses her intensity quite well. I think her life experience plays a large role in her success as an actress. What do you think?
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