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Web-Exclusive Review: The Limits Of Control

Rob Ortenzi on 4/29/09 @ 11:27 AM

DRAMA
THE LIMITS OF CONTROL (Focus Features)
STARS > Isaach De Bankolé, Tilda Swinton, Gael García Bernal, Paz de la Huerta, John Hurt, Bill Murray
DIRECTOR > Jim Jarmusch
OPENS > May 1 (limited)
RATING > 4/5

The title of Jim Jarmusch's latest film comes from a 1975 essay of the same name in which the visionary author William S. Burroughs wrote, "Words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind will soon encounter the limits of control." As such, Jarmusch's nameless protagonist, played stoically by West African actor Isaach De Bankolé, speaks maybe 50 words throughout the entire film. On an ambiguous mission through a Spanish dreamscape, he has prearranged meetings with various characters--a naked revolver enthusiast (de la Huerta), a platinum blonde cineaste (Swinton), an elderly guitarist (Hurt) and a Mexican cowboy (Bernal), among others--with whom he exchanges matchbooks, instructions and an occasional musical instrument. Supremely focused in his task, he offers few responses to their philosophical musings on the arts and human nature, but as his mission progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that he has not simply ignored them.

Meanwhile, thematic and visual echoes from many of Jarmusch's previous films surface--most notably Dead Man, Coffee And Cigarette and Ghost Dog--as cinematographer Christopher Doyle (Paranoid Park) weaves a diaphanous atmosphere around our silent and dapperly dressed hero, following him through rustic squares, narrow alleyways and a never-ending series of cafes in slow, methodical anticipation of a final appointment. Along the way, an aura of impending doom is projected via the dark psychedelic drones of Boris And The Black Angels, the sub-bass rumblings of Sunn O))), and the ominous twang of Dylan Carlson's Earth. After all the existential buildup, the ending isn't so much a surprise as a foregone conclusion, an inexorable confluence of opposing forces in which nothing is explained but all is resolved. In that sense, The Limits Of Control is an almost perfect film. It's also one that demands repeat viewings and invites multiple, overlapping interpretations. --J. Bennett

http://www.filminfocus.com/film/the_limits_of_control

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