The Limits of Control (*)

Directed by: Jim Jarmusch Starring: Isaac de Bankolé, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Gael Garcia Bernal, Hiam Abbass, Paz de la Huerta, John Hurt, Luis Tosar

Seen: June 6th 2010

* Out of ****

The Limits of Control is probably one of the most obscure movies I have seen in my life. Around 85% of the movie is filled with silence, with dialogue treated as something ill-preferred. Instead we are presented with unnecessarily long and demotivating stares at, among other, the lead character Lone Man (de Bankolé) going through his morning stretching kata/routine. And this is presented not once, but numerous times, in conjunction with numerous other repeated scenes.

The Limits of Control starts with Lone Man meeting two suspicious looking men in an airport, one asks him (in Spanish), whether he understands Spanish. When he says no, the man continues in French (I assumed) and the other translates his very cryptic mission clues; “Everything is Subjective, The Universe has no centre and no edges, reality is arbitrary”, a he is instructed to wait. So he goes to a motel and waits, going out each day to drink two espressos in two separate cups, something he does somewhere between 5 and 7 times during the movie. Some obscure characters, named simply Violin (Tosar), Blonde (Swinton), or Guitar (Hurt) will eventually walk up to him, ask if he speaks Spanish (in Spanish), and on him answering no will ask some question about movies, art, music, etc. and exchange a matchbox with him. The matchbox will contain a piece of paper with a code on which Lone Man will read before eating the paper and swallowing it down with some espresso. It is all an extremely over-elaborate plan for an assassination of another simply named character, American (Murray). In his hotel room he also meets Nude (de la Huerta) a girl who will at most be wearing a pair of glasses and a completely see-through raincoat. And even though she offers sex, he claims that he never does it while working.

If there was significance in all of this, it was lost on me however, and I struggled to stay awake even though I was well-rested. The movie also has a very ironic name, as I’d say the movie tests the viewer’s Limits of Control – in that it wants to see how long the viewer can remain seated without walking out of the cinema. The movie isn’t offensive or explicit (Nude is only briefly shown in full-frontal view), but it also doesn’t ask any questions of the viewer apart from one – Do you care about any of this? My answer on that is sadly no – and I urge you to avoid this movie, as it is purely and simply a waste of time.