Movie review: The Limits of Control

For God's sake, man, learn to speak Spanish!

by John P. Meyer

Jim Jarmusch's new film The Limits of Control is an enigma wrapped in a shroud. In regard to narrative structure, it bears about as much resemblance to a mainstream Hollywood movie as a flea does to the critter it's sucking on. (Upon leaving the theater where we preview-screened it, a fellow critic was heard to describe it as "an existential murder mystery" - which is precisely half correct: it is, in fact, existential.)

When I tell you that I ended up enjoying the Hell out of this 116 minute indulgence in idiosyncracy, those few of you who actually get out to the Magnolia to see it may question my sanity. But there's just something about the repetition of behavioral patterns - interrupted infrequently by subtle divergences - that makes the experience of watching the movie hypnotic. Initially maddening, I'll grant you, but eventually hypnotic. Not to mention hilarious, in a gibbering, hysterical laughter sort of way.

The protagonist is a nameless, stern-faced man (Isaach De Bankolé) who we first encounter in the stall of an airport rest room as he's engaged in meditative tai chi session. Psychically purged, he emerges from the relative sanctuary of the loo to meet with his client, who - through an interpreter - emits an impressive diversity of psychobabble whose factual content boils down to the fact that our hero (to whom we shall heretofore refer as Lone Man) should proceed to Madrid and wait for a message about the next stage of his assignment.

Which Lone Man does, traveling by train, during the course of which journey he accepts a box of matches from a seductive fellow passenger (Youki Kudoh); the box contains a folded notepaper bearing a series of numbers. He reads (and presumably memorizes) the numbers, then crumples the paper and eats it. Washing it down with a cup of espresso.

Lone Man's first few days in Madrid are spent (per instructions) in his hotel room, where he performs his morning tai chi ritual and spices things up with an occasional spirited glance at the mostly deserted street outside his window. (During one such episode he spies a slender woman in a diaphonous gown passing in front of the window across the plaza; she never once glances in his direction, and this is the last we see of her.)

Having weathered this initial purgatory (with us in tow as silent purgatory-bound observers), Lone ventures out into the street, dressed in the same shiny gray suit and lavender shirt which has constituted his wardrobe continuously to this point. He wanders here and there, shakes off a gaggle of street urchins who want to know if he's an American gangster (which he denies), and finds himself at an open-air cafe where he orders two espressos (in two cups). The waiter - being short on English - misinterprets this request to mean a double espresso. Which he then corrects.

A shady character bearing a violin case approaches and seats himself at Lone's table. He passes across a matchbox (of the identical brand, though of a different color, than the first one). Lone trades boxes with the fellow, who asks (in Spanish): "You don't speak Spanish, do you?" Which line - due to its repetition - soon becomes a primary source of the type of hysterical laughter-inducing thing hinted at earlier.

Upon returning to his hotel room, Lone discovers that he's no longer alone: there's an almost-naked girl (the luscious Paz de la Huerta, wearing only schoolteacher glasses) on his bed, pointing a gun in his approximate direction. But she seems altogether friendly - or perhaps friendly in the altogether would be a better way of phrasing it. She wants to know whether he speaks Spanish; she wants to know if he likes her ass. Exerting a level of self-discipline which probably explains why he gets all the best matchboxes, Lone responds in the positive (regarding the second query), then proceeds to spends the night on the bed fully clothed beside his fully-unclothed sleeping companion - which makes for quite the artful cinematic tableau.

Back at the streetcorner cafe the next day (or perhaps it's the day after that, or the next day), Lone orders the same two cups of espresso - which the waiter gets right this time - and finds himself being approached by perhaps the oddest looking individual in Madrid: it's a woman (Tilda Swinton, oddly seductive) in a trench coat, sunglasses and white Stetson, with pixie-ish ears peeking through ivory-white, cornsilk hair. After determining that, no, he doesn't speak Spanish, she moves into the conversational arena of cinema. (You'll note I said "SHE moves," because Lone is nothing if not close-mouthed: his contributions are limited to the occasional head bob or gutteral yes-no response.)

Matchboxes are traded; the secret message is read; Lone's high fiber diet is reinforced.

Similar scenarios are enacted in a progession of increasingly smaller cities and towns, moving next to Seville where Lone at last dons a different colored shiny suit - this time chocolate brown. In the course of fulfilling a surreptitious assignation in a closed nightclub, Lone is seen to actually crack a smile in appreciation of the Flamenco performance being put on for the benefit of employees. It's his first and last such indulgence.

When something beyond the routine actually happens in and around a deserted desert precinct of rural Spain, the events are lent a heightened drama due to the fact that we've spent the last 80 or so minutes immersed in virtual monotony. Yes, Virginia, there IS a sort of plot involved here, cryptic though it may be, and the story will come to some sort of conclusion. Which involves Bill Murray in the role of a sequestered industrialist whose company's black helicopters we've observed flying overhead from time to time from the get-go.

The Limits of Control (whose title, it seems, has recently been changed to No Limits, No Control) is the film equivalent of an impressionist painting whose appreciation depends upon an acquired taste that many will not make the effort to acquire. Themes of contemplation, translation, pattern, structure and art vs. reality intermingle throughout the narrative thread.

One reading of the film is that it's an allegory of our progression through life. Alternatively, it can be seen as simply dense. Both views may be equally correct.

There's a Tangerine Dream-like, Robert Fripp-ish, Brian Eno-esque score (actually done by a group called Boris) accompanying the "action," which imparts a faux-dramatic edge to the generally mundane proceedings.

My prescription for screening The Limits of Control: two espressos (in two cups).