Latex Movie Review: The Limits of Control

The Limits of Control is one of those movies that you either give up on after 20 minutes, or if you are a fan of art-house movies, stick with until the bitter end. Here is the plot. Issach De Bankole plays a character who rarely speaks and is never mentioned by name but called "Lone Man" in the ending credits. Lone Man has a meeting in the business class lounge of an airport with two men and given the following instructions: Go to the towers, go to the cafe, wait a few days, look for the violin. Lone man goes to the towers ( a hotel where he has the penthouse room ) and lies in bed awake through the night. He goes to the cafe and orders two separate coffees, the cups he sets on the table side by side. Nothing happens that day and he goes to a museum and stares at a few paintings. He goes back to the cafe the next day, and again the next day when a man holding a violin case shows up and sits at his table. He asks the Lone Man if he speaks Spanish and Lone Man shakes his head no. After some small talk from Violin Man they trade boxes of matches. After the Violin Man leaves Lone Man opens up his matchbook box, removes a strip of paper with a code written on it, studies the code, puts it in his mouth, and then uses the coffee to wash it down. Sounds like a spy thriller, but that is most likely not what is happening. Lone Man meets several other contacts, each time after ordering two separate cups of coffee, each time with them asking him if he speaks Spanish, each time both of them exchanging boxes of matches, and each time Lone Man removing a code which he studies and eats. Each contact engages in small talk which may or may not be relevant to the movie. In between meetings the Lone Man usually goes to a museum and stares at a painting, or lies in bed staring at the ceiling. This eventually leads to some sort of brief mission, which I will not mention here as it is most likely a spoiler. But that does not happen until the final 20 minutes of this nearly 2 hour movie.

The Limits of Control is a Jim Jarmusch film, which means that even though it may take a few viewings before you figure out what the hell is going on you will experience a fill that is very deep in mood and visuals. Jarmusch directed my favorite Johnny Depp film, the 1995 western Dead Man, which was just as moody but was far less cryptic. Otherwise I have never seen any of his other movies. I have seen plenty of movies from cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and The Limits of Control is among his best work. Every shot is visually stunning, something that is needed in a film like this where the pacing is extremely slow and the plot is extremely vague. It is Doyle's cinematography which allowed me to get through this film much the way he has done so with many Wong Kar Wai films I have seen. Is The Limits of Control worth renting? That all depends on your own patience. It is a movie worth watching, but if you are looking for a story to go with your movie then you may want to skip it. But as to those of you who enjoy the odd art-house film and love deciphering cryptic plots, you can't get much better than this movie.

THE SCENE:
Actress/model Paz de la Huerta plays a character identified as "Nude" in the closing credits. She shows up in Lone Man's hotel room lying naked on his bed wearing nothing but glasses, and is in a few other scenes, more than any other character that Lone Man meets. It is suggested that she is his love interest, although he refuses to have sex with her and ignores her for most of the time she is on screen. At 30 minutes she enters the hotel room wearing a clear plastic raincoat and asks Lone Man if he likes it. He tells her he does, but then continues to ignore her while she poses in the outfit. Her cell phone goes off and Lone Man grabs it, brings it into the next room, and smashes it. Dejected, nude woman lounges seductively on the bed and sulks that Lone Man does not like cell phones, guns, or having sex. Pouting, she does a nice "Why not me" look down at her body before the scene ends. The scene is about one minute long including a few cut aways to Lone Man's face. The outfit is a bit less effective considering you had seen the woman's nude body in a prior scene ( as well as scenes to follow ), but is still stunning. It is worth mentioning that at 1 hour 2 minutes the Lone man imagines seeing the nude woman through a window across the courtyard wearing the plastic raincoat. This is very brief and from a distance, so only worth seeking out if you simply must see every scene with Paz wearing that outfit. In addition, a scene at 1 hour 24 minutes has Lone Man walking through a hotel lobby and spotting the plastic raincoat hanging on a hook with some other coats.