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Directed by Jim Jarmusch’s
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The Limits of
Control The
good news is, The Magic Lantern, Spokane’s art house, reopened last
week. The bad news is that they
opened with Jim Jarmusch’s new film
“The Limits of Control.” “The
Limits of Control” reminds me of the films I used to see by would-be
filmmakers in the 1960s, in which endlessly repetitive scenes were repeated
ad nauseum, from each of which you were supposed to
get more and more information from each repetition, until, I believe, the
filmmaker had given you everything you needed to make the connection between
the person on screen and you. It
was like filling a page with the same words, page after page, and calling it
a novel. “The
Limits of Control,” Jim Jarmusch’s new
film, who in fact has made some films that I actually like, including “Ghost Dog”
(1999) and “Night on Earth” (1991), has evidently decided to
remove anything in “The Limits of Control” that might intrigue us
or appeal to us in any way, so that what he ends up with is absolutely
unendurable. A
gorgeous young man (isaach De Bankolé),
sits at a cafe in Madrid, orders two espressos in two different cups, and
waits. And waits. And waits. Until someone comes along, sits down
and asks him in Spanish, “You don’t speak Spanish, do
you?” and
hands him a matchbook. Isaach then hands him a similar matchbook filled with
diamonds. The person leaves. Isaach opens
his matchbook and finds a note folded inside it which apparently tells him
where to go next. He swallows the
note. He
goes there, sits at a cafe, orders two espressos in two cups, waits for
someone else to come along, ask him “You don’t speak Spanish, do
you?” they exchange matchbooks and the same thing happens. Occasionally
he goes to the Prado, for relief I guess, to look at certain paintings, then
it’s off by plane or train to his next assignation. Each one takes him to a smaller city,
then to an isolated villa, then by foot to, I believe, a gangster’s own
well-guarded lair. He
is not interested in sex, he speaks only when spoken to, for some reason he
has enlisted A-list actors who are seen in episodes here, including Tilda Swinton, Gael Garcia
Bernal, and Bill Murray, but the fact is no one can save this movie. He’s even got the great Hong
Kong cinemtographer Christopher Doyle to shoot the
film. However, nothing can save
this movie, even the ability to speak Spanish. |