Director: Jim Jarmusch
Screenplay: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Isaach de Bankolé as Lone
Man; Bill Murray as American; Tilda Swinton as Blonde; Gael García Bernal as
Mexican; Hiam Abbass as Driver; Paz de la Huerta as Nude; Alex Descas as
Creole; John Hurt as Guitar; Youki Kudoh as Molecules; Jean-François Stévenin
as French; Óscar Jaenada as The Waiter; Luis Tosar as Violin
For today, we have what is
regarded as Jim Jarmusch's less
regarded film. Openly, on the offset, I have come to love The Limits of Control initially in mind that, in lieu to a career
of mainly dialogue heavy films, and with his debut Permanent Vacations (1980) the weakest I have seen, the reputation of
the film comes as much from how boldly he stepped out of his comfort zone
rather than whether it was an artistic disaster or not. The tone is one you
have to appreciate immediately or the film will not work. Tonally, the choice
to score the film to drone metal is the perfect symbol of what Jarmusch's last 2000s film really is, a
stretching of simple factors as furthest as possible in slow prolonged riffs
which build. To watch The Limits of
Control is the director-writer stretching his obsessions and a crime story
to their extreme minimalism.
Here he has an assassin story,
told with clear nods to the European film traditions of existential qualities,
but also as an incredibly minimal series of vignettes building from his habit
of acquiring very distinct casts just to have walk-on cameos. It is an experimental
risk that would divide even his fans inherently. What the plot is turns out to
be very simple and easy to grasp if plotted out - Jarmusch regular Isaach de
Bankolé is sent out on a contract to kill an American politician, but the
film itself is about the journey, following various different figures
exchanging matchboxes to the next person, all of which end up on conversations
about everything from movies to even the potential scientific uses of molecule
research.
It's droll, esoteric and would be
immediately accused of pretentious; here is a world of assassins where Tilda Swinton is a silver wig and cowboy
hat can go into a conversation about The
Lady of Shanghai (1947) not making sense. Where it all makes sense for me
is that the hectic (possible) reality of hired killers is clearly not what we
have as is usually depicted but something else. In complete honesty, the only
aspect that feels absurd for me is that actress Paz de la Huerta spends most of the film entirely nude or in a
transparent raincoat only, probably in the only moment of Jarmusch's career he ever seemingly, for better or worse, had a
boner in his art. Aside from this, this is still a playful Jarmusch film, the slow pace not as extreme as even how drastically
glacial Gus Van Sant's films became
in the 2000s, to compare to another American indie auteur, but is instead
leisured and zen like.
Even the dialogue is not that
surprising when, in Only Lovers Left
Alive (2013), two vampires can talk of underground bands, his
cinematography a catalogue of long and lengthy tangents that were always of a
sign of Jarmusch being a
proto-hipster. The difference between him and Quentin Tarantino was always his sense of a warmer humanity rather
than an overt archness, and this applies to The Limits of Control as, for all its languid moments and tangents,
the dialogue does has sparks of amusement or a willingness to raise an eyebrow
at itself when characters start bringing up quotations.
Helping considerably is the cast,
Bankolé a magnetic prescience who
spend the film almost entirely mute, his rituals like ordering two cups of espresso
at once given a light conviction to them without being heavy handed quirks. Beyond
him, Jarmusch has since the start of his career always attached himself to
idiosyncratic actors. de la Huerta, despite
spending the film mostly nude, a blunt literalisation of a femme fatale that is
played for clear humour1; Tilda
Swinton, who'd work with Jarmusch
onwards from this film; John Hurt, in
a nice cameo talking about the real bohemians; a returning Youki Kudoh, from Mystery
Train (1989); and many more. At whatever point, likely Mystery Train as it was a three part anthology, Jarmusch became obsessed with even
casting minor one scene roles with distinct faces, character actors, even
non-actors like Screaming Jay Hawkins.
Whether it succeeds or not each time, it does at least mean you care about the
side characters, as he always cast good actors who can make dialogue like here
credible or have figures that stand out.
Notably as well, in terms of
casting, he had the legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle on this production, and set in Madrid the result
is sumptuous, contrary to its plot for a clear deliberateness. Large portions
of the film are devoted to Bankolé's hit
man waiting (from visiting an art gallery to sitting at cafes) which doe add to
the entirely deliberated neutered tone that likely irritated many; I fell in
love with this because, not only is it clearly going for a meditative state,
but Doyle's work is gorgeous here,
one of his less overtly colourful or heightened productions, but with a sense
of style that is rich.
Of course, the score as mentioned
is drone metal, a genre I am fond of, compiled of many legends of the sub-genre
such as Earth, the pioneers of it, to
the likes of Boris and Sunn O)). Drone metal, in which a single
riff can be purposely slowed and extended out for minutes, has found itself in
the curious place where it is appreciated by non-metal fans, once described as
being "raga played in an earthquake"2. It is one of the
most extremely experimental genres because of it minimalistic, a genre that
certainly adds atmosphere as it emphasises the slowness contemplative state of
the world we see onscreen.
Tonally the film has a
repetitious nature which adds to the material, haziness from the phrase used to
indicate each person Bankolé has to
meet, "Do you speak Spanish?", to the motif phrase of a proud man
being recommended to visit a graveyard to realise where humanity is. The sense
of ominousness, the motif of death, does grow on a rewatch, felt for me now
similar to Dead Man (1995) which was
scored to a noisy rock instrumental score from Neil Young. A sense for all the humour and clear delight is still
to be had in the references to classical art, but the existential nature of the
film does play off this sense of mortality. Likelihood is that Bankolé could easily represent the Angel
of Death on interpretation. It doesn't detract from the pleasures to be had, as
this is a film where a guitar string literalises the weaponisation of art, but
it feels sombre as much indebted to its influences as it is Jarmusch's own
work.
The result, in its lack of a lot
of dialogue or a full plot, turns into being a shifting experience, one that is
fully experienced instead of exposited. The result is, controversially,
becoming one of my favourite of the director's films as it's a one-off, a work
that I came to with lowered expectations and a decade plus wait, only to grow
into this magnificently atmospheric and powerful piece.
Abstract Spectrum: Atmospheric/Minimalist
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium
=====
1) Its fascinating to think, in
how I remember this period, that Paz de
la Huerta was almost being held up as being a new voice after her appearance
in Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void (2009), a name of interest in casting only for her
to disappear in the early 2010s. Obviously the real tale in more than this,
with roles before and a career of performances into the 2010s, but the casting
here the same year always had a sense of weird synchronicity that never lead to
anything else.
2) A reference to this article on the sub-gebre.
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