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May 6, 2009

The Limits Of Control

I saw The Limits Of Control the day after reading Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull - a notable corollary purely because both set flying all the red flags that Eastern-pop philosophy always sends up in my critical process. But what I enjoyed about the film is how Jarmusch's formal patterns provided a rigid affront to the Zen espousings (or lack thereof) of his characters even as it simultaneously adheres to the subjectivity which Alex Descas (whose presence reminded me of how excited I am about finally catching Claire Denis' 35 Rhums at the LA Film Festival next month) warns Isaach De Bankole's assassin of in the opening scenes. When Bankole engages in his routine, when he stares at a single painting on each visit to the museum and the camera pushes in on that painting as the sound design and score swell so as to further focus our vision and convey import not in the work of art but the movement towards it, I found the film as thrilling as the thriller it is masquerading as isn't. My favorite special effects are syntactical - when two disparate shots, for example, function as a traditional exchange in a shot-reverse shot structure - and this film works best when that syntax is hewn the bone, to the point that the only way to appreciate the film is objectively. The film exists solely within the sequence of what we perceive; one cannot make the logical assumption that Bankole's character eats when the camera is not trained on him, or sleeps in the space in between shots. As Karina Longworth notes in her review, Banokole "literally feeds on encryption" - and, as far as Jarmusch feels we should be concerned, encryption alone.

This motif goes a long way towards explaining the film a whole, in so much as that it is almost entirely self-contained. That's one of the biggest of many differences between this and Dead Man, to which some critics have made allusions, and while such limitations prevents The Limits Of Control from hitting the same high poetic highs as what is still Jarmusch's masterpiece, it's a period-appropriate constraint. Dead Man took place in an America upon which industry was only just beginning to encroach; The Limits Of Control, what with its archetypal billionaire making a pathetic and vain effort to bunker down in the wilds of Europe, is decidedly post-industrial.

One other thing: Tilda Swinton quotes herself in the film, when she speak of film and dreams, and it reminded me that I've been meaning to revisit her source material: the State Of Cinema address she gave at the San Francisco Film Festival two years ago. Let's all go read it again together; I promise we'll be better for it.

Posted by David Lowery at May 6, 2009 6:29 PM