Jim's gone so far out with this one I didn't really get it. Isaach de Bankolé plays another variation of Le Samourai - accompanied by a nude girl (Paz de la Huerta) - as he traverses Spain collecting codes in matchboxes from eccentrics like Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Gael Garcia Bernal and flamenco playing types. Then he assassinates Bill Murray (with a guitar string)...
Very slow film has one or two amusing moments, some interesting visuals (such as Juan Gris's cubist violin), a great flamenco sequence, a truly abrupt ending and some interesting cameos, but altogether doesn't seem to add up to anything - it's less than the sum of its parts, a sort of reverse cubist abstraction.
It's very formalist in the way it's done, and shot by the great Christopher Doyle.
I like the moment Tilda talks about great old movies, even the ones where people just sit there without talking - and then do just that.
This New York Times extract might be helpful:
'To the extent that “The Limits of Control” is a puzzle, Mr. Jarmusch said he drew inspiration from Jacques Rivette’s films, where the pleasure often lies in disorientation in the accumulation of cryptic clues and resonances rather than in solutions. Accordingly, he was more eager to hear interpretations of the film than to offer his own.
“It’s not my job to know what it means,” he said, adding that the Juan Gris painting seen at one point could be taken as a hint to the movie’s Cubist nature. “It’s interpretable in different ways, and they’re all valid.” '
By the way the 'beautiful' Finnish film referenced is Aki Kaurismäki's La Vie de Bohème (1992).
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