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It's not every filmmaker who'd interrupt his fevered cinematic consciousness-stream to lecture you on how to appreciate his work. But like TV's Lost, Jim Jarmusch may have finally reached that point of obfuscation.
But where Lost may repeat episodes with "Pop-Up Video" style footnotes, in the cameo-laden The Limits of Control Jarmusch puts expository dialogue in the mouth of a mysterious blond "film fan," played by Tilda Swinton.
"The best films are like dreams you're not really sure you've had," says the character known only as Blonde to the movie's laconic protagonist Lone Man (Isaach de Bankole) over coffee in a Spanish cafe patio. "Sometimes, I like it in films when people just sit there, not saying anything."
And then, of course, there follows several seconds of the two characters not saying anything. I have to admit that extremely dry joke (I think it was a joke) elicited a smile from me, a rare frisson of how it felt to see a Jarmusch movie when they ambled, unselfconsciously and wittily. Down By Law and Mystery Train seem a thousand years ago now.
But then, why would Jarmusch need to explain himself? Isn't his niche audience well aware of his modus operandi in the same way David Lynch's or Woody Allen's are? Or is he getting a subset of Wes Anderson fans who've followed Bill Murray over into Jarmusch films such as Broken Flowers and The Limits of Control, newbies who may need a word or two about this particular auteur's vibe to "get" him?
The Limits of Control actually starts out with what seems like a left-brained plot, arcane instructions from Spanish to English via an interpreter for a plot of some sort (a kidnapping? a murder? -- we don't find out until the last act). Soon, our Lone protagonist is in Madrid waiting for instructions that arrive in the form of pieces of paper in matchboxes, exchanged at cafes, and eaten once read. The contacts do all the talking. Indeed, the longest line the Lone Man has is "Not while I'm working" -- this in response to a naked girl (Paz de la Huerta) who shows up repeatedly in his room and asks, "Don't you like sex?"
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Like every one of his contacts, Naked has a monologue. In fact, Lone Man runs through the same procedure so often -- the prelude to a monologue being a complete stranger coming up and saying, "You don't speak Spanish, do you? -- it sometimes seems as if The Limits of Control is Jarmusch's attempt to give a "moment" to everyone who's ever wanted to be in a Jim Jarmusch movie. Apart from Lone Man and Naked, every part is a cameo.
There's John Hurt as "Guitar," who leaves a beautiful antique Spanish guitar as payment for their matchbox exchange, there's Gael Garcia Bernal as "Mexican," who covets said instrument, there's Youki Kudoh as "Molecules," who gives a short existential speech on quantum physics. And there's the aforementioned Bill Murray, whose angry speech seems to have something to do with pop culture being garbage.
As the words wash over you, you may find yourself getting tired trying to parse them. That's when you may find yourself just forgetting the movie and enjoying Jarmusch's undeniable cinematic skill -- a Spanish bodega here, a graffiti-filled wall there, the Spanish landscape passing by from inside a moving train. The Limits of Control is two hours of beautifully framed and shot WTF -- a dream I'm pretty sure I've never had.
(This film is rated 14-A)