The Limits of Control

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The Limits of Control

Promotional film poster
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
Produced by Stacey Smith
Gretchen McGowan
Written by Jim Jarmusch
Starring Isaach De Bankolé
Bill Murray
Tilda Swinton
Gael García Bernal
Music by Boris
Cinematography Christopher Doyle
Editing by Jay Rabinowitz
Studio Entertainment Farm
PointBlank Films
Distributed by Focus Features
(United States)
Revolver Entertainment
(United Kingdom)
PiX Incorporated
(Japan)[1]
Release date(s) May 1, 2009 (2009-05-01)
Running time 116 minutes[2][3]
Country United States
Language English
Spanish
Box office $1,395,030[4]

The Limits of Control is a 2009 American film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Isaach De Bankolé as a lone wolf assassin, carrying out a job in Spain. Filming began in February 2008, and took place on location in Madrid, Seville and Almeria, Spain. The film was distributed by Focus Features.[5] It received mixed reviews, and as of June 15, 2010, has a 41% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes,[6] which criticizes the film for its slow pace and inaccessible dialogue while praising its beautiful cinematography and its ambitious scope.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The film opens in an airport in which the Lone Man is being instructed on his mission, although the mission itself is left unstated and the instructions are cryptic, including such phrases as "Everything is subjective," "The universe has no center and no edges; reality is arbitrary," and "Use your imagination and your skills." After the meeting in the airport he travels to Madrid and then on to Seville, meeting several people in cafés and on trains along the way. Each meeting has the same pattern: he orders two espressos and waits, his contact arrives and in Spanish asks, "You don't speak Spanish, right?" To which he responds, "No." The contacts tell him a few cryptic sentences, then the two of them exchange matchboxes. A code written on a small piece of paper inside each matchbox, which the Lone Man reads and then eats. These coded messages lead him to his next rendezvous. He repeatedly encounters a woman who is always either completely nude, or wearing only a transparent raincoat. She invites him to have sex with her, but he declines, stating that he never has sex while he is working. One phrase that the man in the airport told him is repeated throughout the movie: "He who thinks he is bigger than the rest must go to the cemetery. There he will see what life really is: a handful of dirt." He is given a ride in a pickup truck, on which the words La vida no vale nada ('life is worth nothing') are painted, and taken to a small town in the desert. Just outside this town lies a fortified and heavily guarded compound where the assassination is to take place. After observing the compound from afar, he miraculously penetrates its defenses and waits for his target inside the target's office. The target (Bill Murray) asks how he got in, and he answers, "I used my imagination." After the murder, he rides back to Madrid, where he locks away the suits he has worn throughout the movie and changes back into a sweatsuit bearing the national flag of Cameroon. Before exiting the train station onto a crowded sidewalk he throws away his last matchbox.

The Limits of Control repeatedly references other films. For example, when the Lone Man meets the Blonde she discusses classic Hitchcock and Welles films. His first meeting with the Nude echoes the beginning of Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt.[7]

[edit] Cast

[edit] Soundtrack

No. Title Artist Length
1. "Intro"   Bad Rabbit 0:13
2. "Fuzzy Reactor"   Boris with Michio Kurihara 3:42
3. "Saeta"   La Macarena 2:17
4. "Sea Green Sea"   Bad Rabbit 4:11
5. "Feedbacker" (TLOC Edit) Boris 3:32
6. "Por Compasión: Malaguenas"   Manuel el Sevillano 2:03
7. "Farewell"   Boris 7:29
8. "N.L.T."   Sunn O))) & Boris 3:46
9. "El Que Se Tenga Por Grande"   Carmen Linares 3:21
10. "Dawn"   Bad Rabbit 1:41
11. "You on the Run"   The Black Angels 4:50
12. "Omens and Portents 1: The Driver" (TLOC Edit) Earth and Bill Frisell 2:44
13. "El Que Se Tenga Por Grande"   Talegón de Córdoba & Jorge Rodriguez Padilla 3:54
14. "Blood Swamp" (TLOC Edit) Sunn O))) & Boris 4:33
15. "Schubert 2. Adagio [String Quintet in C, D.956]" (TLOC Edit) Ensemble Villa Musica 5:16
16. "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House"   LCD Soundsystem 5:15
17. Untitled (TLOC Edit) Boris 1:04

[edit] Cultural references mentioned in the dialogue

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The Limits of Control". PiX Incorporated. http://avex-pix.co.jp/movies/the_limits_of_control.php. Retrieved 2009-12-09. 
  2. ^ "The Limits of Control". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135092/. Retrieved 2011-02-22. 
  3. ^ "The Limits of Control". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/limits_of_control/. Retrieved 2011-02-22. 
  4. ^ "The Limits of Control (2009)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=limitsofcontrol.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-01. 
  5. ^ Masters, Charles (February 2008). "Jarmusch and Murray reunite for road thriller". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN1229116720080213?feedType=RSS&feedName=entertainmentNews. Retrieved 2008-06-22. 
  6. ^ "The Limits of Control (2009)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/limits_of_control/. Retrieved 2009-08-01. 
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ Miller, Winter (February 2008). "Jim Jarmusch tests 'Limits of Control'". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117981248.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1&query=limits+of+control. Retrieved 2008-06-22. 

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