Oh, the life of a criminal: Great hours, exotic locales, big guns, beautiful women, violence, and…lots of walking? If the prospect of watching one man stroll through one city in one suit while doing one thing over and over—and over—again doesn’t excite you, stop reading now. This movie isn’t for you. The eponymous control refers to the seemingly unbreakable restraint shown by stone-faced Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé), a well-dressed criminal whose job apparently consists of nothing more than conversations with various contacts, beginning with “You don’t speak Spanish, right?” and ending with the exchange of matchboxes, most of which contain cryptic notes. One particular box is filled with diamonds. I suppose this is the product he traffics. Whatever happened to those handy little black bags we’re so used to seeing, I’ll never know.
It is vaguely implied that there’s an overarching plan being hatched in each of these meetings; that the repeated phrases and existential musings about life’s friability are the code words of a secret, international society of conspiratorial characters intent on using any means necessary to destroy the vile limits society places on them. Gee, that sounds more interesting than the movie I saw. Where can I buy a ticket? Now, before you go all Ghost Dog on me, understand that I consider Jarmusch no less than a master at tinkering with, at times obliterating, genre conventions. Dead Man and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai were successes. The Limits of Control is a failure, no matter how well-shot, leisurely paced, and pensive a commentary on the contemporary artist it might be. And yes, it is about artists. You were just too busy yawning to notice.
As if he knew our eyes might be a little droopy at some point, Jarmusch introduces Nude (Paz de la Huerta) about a third into the film. A moment before her first—of many—appearances without fabric, Lone Man stares at a painting of a naked woman. Lo and behold, a naked woman awaits him in his room. A painterly cityscape he admires morphs into a painting on the wall. Late in the film, when he miraculously infiltrates a fortress, he explains he did it “with his imagination.” See, somewhere in trying to make a movie about how artists’ creative faculties help them transcend societal and cultural limitations, Jarmusch made a boring movie about lethargic criminals. So Nude, with her perfect ass and sultry accent, or Blonde (Tilda Swinton) and her film geek excitement, are nothing but distractions, bumps in the road to true artistic fulfillment. The one way to escape these shackles? With our minds, of course.
The film opens with Lone Man practicing Tai Chi in an airport restroom. It ends with him changing clothes in one. Strange as it seems, prefacing exotic Spanish locales with these ordinary settings, I think I know why we see this: It’s all a dream. No, really. It is. Remember how John Nash made up a global conspiracy in A Beautiful Mind? Well, something tells me if Lone Man coughed up all the secret notes he swallowed, they’d be blank. Because he, tired of the binds placed upon him by close-mindedness, has imagined his own super-spy existence as a means of escape. In effect, he is the writer/director of this movie, determined to indulge his artistic vision, no matter how outlandish or dull it might be. Get in his way, and he’ll strangle you. Just ask American (Bill Murray, in a very brief cameo). The title cards at the end of the film declare, “NO LIMITS NO CONTROL.” Ironically, this is exactly what Jarmusch needs. The Limits of Control is artistry gone awry, off the deep end, to places none of us wishes to go. This film isn’t for you? ell it’s not for me, either. I believe in artistic limits, when an audience is involved. Films are meant to be entertaining, not sleep-inducing. When your dense layers of societal critique start to suck any enjoyment out of your movie, you should take a step back, and realize that people don’t want to see two hours of walking.
Two hours of Nude, on the other hand…
Clarence Hammond
© Cinephile Magazine, 2009