The Limits of Control

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The Limits of Control

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The Limits of Control

Bill Murray, Gael García Bernal, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Isaach De Bankolé

The story of a mysterious loner, a stranger in the process of completing a criminal job.

Id: 10998791

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The Limits of Control Recent Reviews
  • 366weirdmovies
    December 28, 2009
    366weirdmovies
    An enigmatic, silent killer is sent on an obscure mission to kill an unknown man for unexplained reasons; the movie follows him as he meets with a long string of contacts of unclear significance, each of whom gives him a matchbook with further instructions and offers him a piece ...( read more)of dime store philosophy. Slow as molasses and often wincingly pretentious, but technically it's extremely beautiful, with incredible Spanish vistas and a measured cinematic poetry that's reminiscent of Sergio Leone. Not for all tastes, but worth a shot if your interested in seeing an experiment in pure cinema with almost no plot.
  • DrZeek
    December 27, 2009
    DrZeek
    Blonde: Are you interested in films, by any chance? I like really old films. You can really see what the world looked like, thirty, fifty, a hundred years ago. You know the clothes, the telephones, the trains, the way people smoked cigarettes, the little details of life. The best...( read more) films are like dreams you're never sure you've really had. I have this image in my head of a room full of sand. And a bird flies towards me, and dips its wing into the sand. And I honestly have no idea whether this image came from a dream, or a film. Sometimes I like it in films when people just sit there, not saying anything.

    For people that enjoy making fun of the obscure challenges of an indie film, prime examples would be Gus Van Sant's Gerry (and most smaller films he does) and this film, from director Jim Jarmusch. This is a long stretch of very little happening, only to reach a confrontation at the end, which results in very little explanation (if one just looks at the surface) and then the film ends. It can be intriguing for the right mood, and being shot in Spain certainly helps.

    Isaach De Bankole stars as a mysterious lone man who performs the same actions for about an hour and forty-five minutes before the last bit. He is in Spain, sits at a cafe, orders two espressos in separate cups, meets a random person who knows him and asks if he can speak Spanish (which he can't) only to have the random person go into a monologue, exchange matchboxes with certain items in them, and leave. Rinse. Repeat. The random people include Tilda Swinton, Gael Garcia Bernal, and John Hurt, with Bill Murray being the final encounter.

    This is very much in line with other Jarmusch films, but certainly not as satisfying. The obscure lines of dialog can easily be interpreted in many different ways, making it at least good for discussion if one can find another person they know, who has actually gone out of their way to sit through the whole film.

    Overall, the mild intrigue and scenery make it bearable, but not a film I want to revisit.

    American: How the fuck did you get in here?
    Lone Man: I used my imagination.
  • rebvodka042099
    December 5, 2009
    rebvodka042099
    No one can question Jarmusch's brilliant mind and what his auteur skills have offered cinema, but here I am - questioning him; since we've all become critics nowadays.

    Jarmusch tried avoiding all cinema cliches, and he fell into the biggest one: he made a film about nothing par...( read more)ticular (so it's for no one particular to like either), filled with artsy gimcrackery for a dialog, and endless repetitive scenes of an indifferent guy's routine between meeting miserable philosophers who exchange match boxes in cafes all across the fields of Spain.

    Even though slow, it's not boring. Even though iterative, it's not meaningless. But it's really nothing special either. It looked as though it was made in two weeks, and that no one really put some effort in it. For me, probably Jarmusch's least successful movie.
  • johnd62
    November 23, 2009
    johnd62
    You know what is the worst part of being the reining king of indie cinema? That when you do have your occasional misstep it becomes all the more disappointing because you can see what they are trying to do but just simply does not work. This is the case of Jim Jarmusch's "The Li...( read more)mits of Control", a that is like watching your favorite color of paint dry, No matter how pretty you think it is, doesn't change the fact that its straight-up boring, which is hard to say considering that it is the one thing I never thought would apply to Jarmusch.
    You have about half of the stuff that applies to a typical Jarmusch film, the great pan shots, amazing score and lush cinematography. Problem is that without the sharp dialogue and cool characters. (As badass as Issach De Bankole is, there is not really anything new or interesting about them.) it just feels like some lazy rip-off over the real deal.
    As much as I hate to say it, the downfall of "The Limits of Control" is that all I could say afterwards is meh.
  • columbiatch
    June 5, 2009
    columbiatch
    I was really into the mood and texture of the film, especially with Doyle's work and the Boris soundtrack. There are a number of references to films by people ranging from Melville to Rivette to Costa, though it's far less obvious to be considered a snob's Tarantino film. I did...( read more)n't care for the culture vs. commerce theme of the film, maybe because it is treated so abstractly and artificially.
  • MisterTuttle
    December 27, 2009
    MisterTuttle
    Photobucket

    As I desc...( read more)ended into impassable rivers,
    I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen...

    - arthur rimbaud

    The names of the characters are not important. You only know the main character as the Lone Man. That's all. He's given a mission to kill a man who seems to be controlling some sort of artificial reality. Think about other films where a character who has to stop the villian and you'll understand. When the Lone Man meets his target, he kills him with a piece of guitar wire. "Reality is arbitrary," the Lone Man tells him.

    Before all of this though he meets six characters who are all in part symbolize the bohemian way of thinking: Music, Movies, Sex, Science, Art and lastly Hallucinations. He exchanges matchboxes with these people, reads a coded message and eats the message.

    Much of the film is existential, how everything relates to something even if it's different. For example, When the Lone Man visits an art gallery he sees a painting of a naked woman. When he returns to his room a naked woman is laying on his bed. How ironic. I think when he's looking at a painting he's using his imagination. "Everything's imagined," one character tells him, the man who makes violins with only one string. Trippy.

    There's also a hint of the characters being aware that there's people watching them. "Among us are those who are not among us," the molecules lady mentions. Is she talking about us, the audience? Or about those who are watching him from the helicopter? I only mention this because the film is shot like it didn't have a director.

    This is a film that will test your patience. Ebert hated this film, but I think he knew what it was about:

    "That reminded me of a silent film named "Man with a Movie Camera," which some people think is the best film ever made. It shows a man with a movie camera, photographing things. Was Jarmusch remaking it without the man and the camera?"

    The cinematography is beautiful and the soundtrack is excellent. Jarmusch has made better films and one of them for me anyways would be Broken Flowers. The trailer for this film makes it look like a mystery. It is, but it's also headscratchingly unconventional that it must be seen for it's trance like tale of existential subjectivity.
  • mattsigur1
    December 22, 2009
    mattsigur1
    Looking at this film as an exercise of beautiful shots and cinematography, this is high art. But it's hard to judge this film and give it a passing grade, because just when you think all your investing, all your anxiety, all your might in following these characters will result in...( read more) something... it results in nothing. And maybe there is some glowing point Jim Jarmusch is trying to reveal, but he's made a film so cold, so unrelenting in its emotionless qualities, that it will be hard to find a reason to care.
    The Limits of Control is east to look at, but before renting this, maybe you should just do what the main character does...go to an art exhibit instead.
  • captainsoso
    December 21, 2009
    captainsoso
    A very zen trip that might be boring ! A rare pearl !
  • jenn1984106
    December 15, 2009
    jenn1984106
    Artistically amazing, really well filmed and well acted. Very... nothing actually happens... like.
  • Jameshy
    December 10, 2009
    Jameshy
    I like Jim Jarmusch's refreshing indie style but this took it too far. The film to just too sparse to get into as nothing really happens. Yeh the music is cool and the attention to detail in the cinematography but the story is just dull. There is a nice slow pace and mysteriou...( read more)sness to it and the characters the guy meets are all interesting and played by great actors but ultimatley i just didn't really care what was going on and just wanted the movie to end. Luckily it did.
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