Criminally Underrated: The Limits of Control

I loved Jim Jarmusch's divisive (to say the least) post-modern noir when it came out in 2009, and finally watching one of its biggest inspirations, The Lady from Shanghai, inspired me to revisit the film. If anything, I love it even more, so I had to write about it for my latest Criminally Underrated piece for Spectrum Culture. This new piece incorporates some of the views I expressed at the time, but I tried to refine the more scattered thoughts. Not that any succinct summary could ever capture the intoxicating beauty of what Jarmusch and Christopher Doyle shot.

My full piece is up now at Spectrum Culture.

The Limits of Control

Allow me to start this review by simply jumping to the lede, if you don't like Jim Jarmusch or have not watched enough of his films to base an opinion on him, do not watch The Limits of Control. Possibly the most "pretentious" film the minimalistic auteur has ever made, it alienated the critical community upon release and makes the rest of his work look mainstream in comparison.

Happily, I am a Jim Jarmusch fan, though that doesn't make this film any less daunting. I'm no stranger to his hip, stark irony, but with The Limits of Control Jarmusch strips film down to its barest elements, a literal take on the title of Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera. A deadpan mixture of Le Samouraï and Waiting For Godot, The Limits of Control represents the apex of just how Jarmsuch-y Jarmsuch can be: if he takes anything else out of the cinematic equation he'd just be a guy on street corners yelling about being on-screen.

Limits follows an unnamed assassin known as the Lone Man (Issach de Bankolé), an appropriately stoic fellow who looks like a freshly chiseled statue. Over the course of two hours, he wonders Spain from café to café, intercepting instructions from couriers that lead only to yet more couriers. Like Godot, the film is concerned less with an expected action than the expectation itself.

Each of the characters Lone Man meets has a distinct quirk, their names -- Guitar (John Hurt), Mexican (Gael Garcia Bernal) -- matching the bare structure of the film. Numerous visual and spoken references to cinema are made, from the film's broad appropriation of Antonioni's sense of ennui to a spoken reference to Aki Kaurismäki by Guitar and a discussion with a platinum-blond Tilda Swinton about Rita Hayworth's own dye-job in The Lady from Shanghai. Lone Man spends much of his free time in art galleries, and Schubert's name is floated about at times. Jarmusch mocks the spy/hitman convention of the required female sexuality by casting a woman (Pax de la Huerta) in the role of Nude; see if you can guess what her particular trait is.

The Limits of Control goes nowhere and it doesn't get there with any speed, yet, in its own quiet way, it's as much a celebration of the cinema as Quentin Tarantino's slice of movie revelry Inglourious Basterds. More so, even, as Jarmusch's open consideration of other media such as painterly art and classical movement and its existential and scientific philosophizing brings him closer to the more sophisticated and well-read Godard (Jonathan Rosenbaum once wrote of Tarantino and Godard that weighing the two was "like comparing a combined museum, library, film archive, record shop, and department store with a jukebox, a video-rental outlet, and an issue of TV Guide," a statement I find harsh but not exactly indefensible). Jarmusch seems to be having just as much fun as Tarantino did, and, like the B-movie-obsessed auteur's Jewish revenge tale, there's more here than meets the eye.

Not that it isn't entirely pleasant to sit back and let the eyes have a field day, however. Jarmusch made some visually striking works with Robby Müller, but his cinematographer here is the great Christopher Doyle, one of the finest in the business today. You may know him from his work with Wong Kar-wai (if you don't, rectify this immediately), and I'm amazed to say that his work here not only rivals his contributions to Wong's canon but exceeds it in places. He captures in minute details the wonder's of de Bankolé's magnificent face and captures the streets of Spain with breathtakingly simple beauty. Occasionally, he lets the sunlight bleed into the frame, creating an impressionistic wash of colors. Don't expect anything from this film to come up during awards season, but the only other film that can compete with Doyle's work is Alexis Zabe's poetic photography for Silent Light.

The closest the film comes to action occurs in the closest thing it has to a climax, when Lone Man meets American (Bill Murray), a foul-mouthed man who lambastes everything that came up in discussion over the course of the film, dismissing them as bohemian distractions. Murray is clearly channeling Dick Cheney, which makes his appearance in a random bunker all the funnier. His presence adds a political aspect to the film, though I'm damned if I know what it is other than a vague commentary on perceived American superiority and a conservative disregard for the beauty of the world (his bunker isn't quite ascetic with its extra furniture, but it's amusing that the only discernible wall "decoration" is a fire extinguisher).

The Limits of Control repeats phrases and scenes with minor variations, to the point that it's easy to doze off in its repetition and come back to the film later and feel that nothing's changed; however, its cross between the hitman genre and a vignette style should give fans of Ghost Dog and Coffee and Cigarettes (or really any of the director's early work) a tether to the Jarmusch they know and love. The DVD comes with the typical pullquotes, and the blurbs calling it a "stylish and sexy thriller" that "shimmers with heat and suspense" are about as funny as anything in the actual movie. I cannot definitively say what it's about or even what I think it's about, but I also don't entirely care. Sure, this movie is so narrow in its appeal that I feel I not only need to wear a beret while watching the film but find a way to hook that beret on cigarettes; but if I genuinely loved this film, will gladly watch it again soon to figure out more of the puzzle and find it almost as immediately arresting as the best of Jarmusch's work, am I really pretentious?

Babel

Alejandro González Iñárritu sits at his desk, looking pensively at a screenplay he's just read. After taking a few deep breaths, he picks up the phone and calls Guillermo Arriaga. The phone barely rings once before a voice answers.

Guillermo Arriaga: Alejandro?
Alejandro González Iñárritu: Guillermo? I just finished reading your script.
GA: What did you think?
AGI: Well, that's what I'm calling about. Um -- oh Christ I don't know how to say this -- Ar--are you kidding me?
GA: Wha--what's the problem?
AGI: Are you serious? This is the exact same script you gave me six years ago.

The sound in Iñárittu's phone suddenly drops to a low hiss. He strains his ear and hears a faintly whispered, "¡coño!" Suddenly the sound of Arriaga's breathing intensifies.

GA: I don't--I don't know what you're talking about.
AGI: Really? A script about the lives of separate people all joined by an unlikely root? Doesn't ring any bells?
GA: I think you're being kind of childish about this.
AGI: I think you're trying to end me! We've already made this movie. Twice. If we do this again the townspeople are going to ignore us crying wolf.
GA: I'm telling you, these movies are different.
AGI: [hissing through the eroded barriers of patience] How?

Iñárittu absent-mindedly fingers his scarf, wondering if its stretching wool could conceivably asphyxiate someone.

GA: I keep broadening the scope. We started in the Mexican underworld, expanded to America, and now we're traveling the world.
AGI: Expanding the stories doesn't make them different!
GA: It does, though! Amores Perros was about surviving into adulthood, 21 Grams was a romance, and this is about couples becoming parents and their relationships with their children, who will then grow up and start the cycle anew. It's a logical progression of my cartography of the human condition.

This time, Iñárittu pauses. He swears he can hear the writer holding his breath.

AGI: [calming] Wel-um, fine then. That does sound interesting. Why don't we cut out one or two of these plotlines though and focus on the rest.
GA: Absolutely not! We have to do all of them!
AGI: Why?
GA: B--because the multiple stories show how the generation gap is universal and that we're always at a crossroads with our children and unsure in which direction to continue.
AGI: Yeah, but it's overly repetitive and it gets bogged down at multiple intervals to openly discuss the same message. And I don't even see the point of putting the Jones family in the story at all. The parents do absolutely nothing and the kids only serve to set up the story of the maid. Her part is nice, so you should separate her story from the Joneses and just throw them away all together.
GA: Have you gone insane?! If I take one element out the stories lose their connection.
AGI: What connection? This is the most contrived bit of nonsense I've ever seen. A rifle links 4 families from across the globe? Are you kidding me? Why not just write in a precocious Scottish child called MacGuffin while you're at it?
GA: The rifle gives the story meaning! You don't think it's interesting that the object that links the world together is a deadly weapon?
AGI: NO! You can't just throw in a symbol without any connection to the story and expect anyone to pick up on it or care. It is pretentious, freshman-year-at-film-school bullshit and I'm better than this. Let's cut back a bit and just make them vignettes, like Jim Jarmusch films.
GA: I will not change a word. The connection is solid and it's genius. We'll get Brad Pitt for the star power, throw in some nudity and ride that critical wave to Oscar gold.
AGI: You have truly lost your mind. This is barely passable and contrived and stilted and preaching. I have worked too hard and come too far to let myself make this. This is outright self-parody and none of the pros overcomes its matching con. I can't take this anymore; you and I are done professionally.

Iñárittu goes to slam the phone, but stops. He thinks for a moment, the hand holding the receiver moving closer and farther away from the base as if literally weighing his options through it. Finally, he brings the phone back to his ear.

AGI: You really think we can get Brad Pitt?

Rudo y Cursi

One must wonder to what degree real life informs Carlos Cuarón's directorial debut. Long the writing partner of big brother Alfonso (the two co-wrote Soló con tu pareja and Y tu mamá también), the younger Cuarón wrote a script for his first time behind the camera about a story of intense sibling rivalry. He has undoubtedly had to weather comparisons, be they positive or negative, to his brother, and casting Y tu mamá también's Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna surely couldn't help. Unfortunately, one need not compare this story of fùtbol and its impact on two ambitious brothers from a poor Mexican village to Alfonso's oeuvre to spot weaknesses.

The brothers are Tato (Bernal) and Beto (Diego Luna). Both are locally renowned for their skills: Tato always puts points on the board and Beto is a brick wall in the goal. They see their chance out of banana picking and small town ennui when a scout's car gets a flat. Batuta watches them play and sees their skill, but he only has space for one more client, so the brothers decide who goes by a penalty shot. Beto, the older, poorer brother, asks Tato to let him block the shot, but Tato wants glory for himself.

Tato wins, thought Beto finds his way to the big leagues eventually. Beto, already embittered by his brother's "betrayal," earns the nickname "Rudo" for his abrasiveness on and off the field. Tato, a natural charmer who returns all the love the crowd gives him, is dubbed "Cursi," though Tato hates its perceived gay connotation. With his face that looks as young now as it did a decade ago, Bernal can't help but ooze charisma, while Luna looks more grizzled: we know nothing of their backgrounds, but one can instantly see a difference in the way life has treated Beto and Tato.

At this stage Cuarón shifts gears away from your typical sports movie to comment on an emotional crisis plaguing Mexico. Tato hits his stride before his brother, and he's hailed as a national hero simply for playing soccer. Batuta fulfills Tato's dream of being a singer by securing a contract for a song and video, a tacky Spanish version of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me," and he bags a gorgeous TV star (Jessica Mas). Both are symptomatic of a nation that, just like us, values fame, not talent, above all else; they each have stories of fighting their way out of poverty, but neither listens to the other as they're so consumed in the thrill of sleeping with a celebrity. He puts so much stock into his absurd music fantasy and is so distracted by the perks of fame that his game begins to slip, setting in motion the events that will ultimately strip him of that fame.

Rudo, on the other hand, cares solely for the money, and he eventually collapses like a neutron star. He shuts out the opposing team in every match, but he gambles away his money, first at the horse track and then in a makeshift high-stakes casino run by ruthless sharks. To help ease Rudo's sense of caution, these men feed him a constant supply of cocaine in order to enslave him in two ways. Back home, his wife joins a pyramid scheme and even goads him into recruiting teammates, and she just never does seem to get it when the company finds an excuse to take away her "points" just as she's on the verge of winning that completely legitimate Caribbean cruise.

Cuarón has an excellent grasp on the black comedy of his social message, but he fails to tie it back into the story. Tato and Beto suffer a series of setbacks and tragedies, yet we do not feel sorry for them because the satirical aspect of the story requires us to view them as loathsome man-children who dive headfirst into wealth and celebrity. Bernal and Luna give commanding performances, as they do, yet neither character has enough humanity to hang a hat on. Furthermore, everything concerning the futbol aspect of the story -- the rags to riches tale, a rivalry settled by one last game, and a penalty shot, no less -- is clichéd to the point of tedium; we know exactly what will happen long before the characters.

Visually, however, it must be said that Cuarón's first time in the director's chair is often impressive. He brings out the social commentary without forcing it, and he never loses track of his characters even though there is so little to track. However, Rudo y Cursi ultimately suffers for the unconnected threads of Cuarón's script, and the false emotional weight he places on characters wholly undeserving of it. He even undercuts his theme of the beauty of the simple life at the end, where the brothers return home losers, only to be given a modest form of happiness from their wealthy brother-in-law, who may or may not be a drug lord. You know, the sort of thing that happens all the time.

Y tu mamá también

Alfonso Cuarón, one of the so-called "Three Amigos" of contemporary Mexican cinema (the other two of course being his friends and collaborators Guillermo Del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu), is possibly the most balanced of the group: he's able to mix Iñárritu's grasp of character with Del Toro's grand scale. His Children of Men remains the greatest science fiction film of the decade, and the best since 1998's Dark City if not 1985's Brazil, and he gave us the only truly well-made Harry Potter film yet released (and it's likely to stay that way, considering David "Just cut out all that silly character nonsense" Yates is seeing it through to the end).

Y tu mamá también is not Cuarón's first film, but it's the one that put him on the map of the cinephile community and paved the way for his successes this decade. Its premise is simple but, as is the hallmark of all great films, it turns clichés on their heads and delivers a final product unlike any other. Had Cuarón been born an American, he might have taken the road trip of two adolescents on the verge of adulthood and mined it for cheap humor, as we are wont to do. Instead, he presents us with a story of lust, humor, sadness and the losses we incur when we grow up. Along the way, we see it grow into a metaphor for the class gap in Mexico.

Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) bid farewell to their girlfriends, who are leaving for a summer abroad in Italy, in the opening moments of the film in the ay that young lovers do: by getting one last piece of nookie. They have their ladies swear not to bed any men in Europe, only to go skirt-chasing themselves the second the plane leaves Mexican airspace. Their efforts are unsuccessful, and soon they're trapped in the terrible vise of ennui.

The pair attend an opulent wedding -- Julio comes from an upper-middle class family, while Tenoch's father is a high-ranking politician -- and meet Luisa (Maribel Verdú), an older woman and wife to Tenoch's cousin Jano. The brash young men try to impress her with talk of a road trip to an exotic beach (a made-up location they dub la Boca del Cielo, or "Heaven's Mouth"), but she's having none of it. Later that night, however, she receives a phone call from her husband admitting his adultery, and she decides to accompany the boys.

As they set out to their imaginary destination, Julio and Tenoch attempt to one-up another in terms of pure braggadocio, each trying to seduce Luisa with tales of their sexual prowess. When they prod her for her own sexual past, she responds in more measured terms, focusing on her first love (who died in an accident) and her crumbling relationship with her husband. While the men's tales only concern the fulfillment of lust, of conquest, Luisa's reflect love, albeit not in the naïve you might expect.

When she calls her husband to bid a final farewell, she breaks down and seduces both of the boys to ease the pain. Rather than give them some sense of satisfaction -- considering how badly they were trying to win her favor -- it brings out mutual resentment and jealousy. Each boy is so thrilled at the idea of having sex with this older woman, but we see how their previous sexcapades did not truly provide any experience, as they seem utterly clueless when confronted with a woman who actually knows what good sex is. Coupled with the jealousy of watching the other man sleep with her, they drop all pretension and reveal themselves for the children they really are.

Only when Luisa threatens to leave them do they calm themselves, and she becomes the instrument of their sexual awakening. The film culminates with a moment of shared passion between the three of them that alters them forever. Too often films of this nature believe that they turn the characters' world upside-down, but Cuarón truly rips apart everything these men thought they knew about themselves, and it understandably scares them.

As they drive across the Mexican landscape, Cuarón beautifully juxtaposes the drunken, pot-smoking antics of the boys with the decaying Mexico just outside their filthy car windows. Beggars surround them at all times, yet they pay little heed to the sea of needy. When the trio stumble across a deserted, exotic beach, they pay a local fisherman to share his food and guide them around the beautiful area; then the soundtrack breaks for one of the frequent narrational asides, mentioning that, in the future, businessmen would destroy this unmarred location to erect a resort, forcing the fisherman to work for them as a janitor. The film as a whole takes places at the end of the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 71-year reign, giving the lads' journey of self-discovery a political undertone and using them as personifications of the nation's transition under Vincente Fox.

Those layers make an already fascinating narrative that much more rewarding. Y tu mamá también combines so many messages and emotions so effortlessly it's a wonder that the film manages to move at such a brisk pace. It certainly helps that Cuarón's camera floats among these characters so gracefully that, as with Scorsese's movements, you're more inclined to view it as another character than an observer.

Hilarious and sad, straightforward and layered, Y tu mamá también is one of the greatest films of the decade. What a shame that films like this cannot even face the MPAA ratings board for fear that it would be given the NC-17 kiss of death, while the trashy violence of the Saw series only rarely has any trouble getting by with an R.

Blindness

There’s a lot of promise that comes with “Blindness,” the new film based on the richly metaphorical, Nobel Prize-winning book by José Saramago. Not only is it based on a great novel, it’s got a killer cast and it’s directed by Fernando Meirelles, director of “City of God,” a film that comes abut close as one possibly can to being an amalgamation of Martin Scorsese’s best work without being plagiaristic. Unfortunately, some books are better left alone.

The story takes place in three parts: the first is the outbreak of the blindness plague and the initial quarantining, the seconds covers the breakdown of the containment camp, and the third follows a band of survivors who escape the camp. Leading them are an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife (Julianne Moore); the latter seemingly the only one unaffected by the epidemic. They set up their containment ward to be a solid, peaceful fraternity. You’ve got everyone: a kid, a kindly ex-prostitute, a thief, and Asian couple, and a wise old man who not so wisely continues to wear an eye patch.

As the soldiers guarding the quarantine zone become more and more afraid of infection, they care less and less about the inhabitants, leaving them to ration their own food and chores, even take care of disposal of bodies. Enter the leader of another ward, the self-proclaimed “King of Ward 3,” who first forces other wards to pay for food (as if money or jewelry has any value anymore), then demands women after the tribute runs out. He has miraculously gotten his hands on a gun, though where or how remains as much a mystery as the pathology of the blindness. This eventually sparks a war, which of course the good guys win because they have a leader who can see the others frantically waving pipes and rods, hoping to collide with someone.

Little is done right in this film. The characters are all absurdly one note: the good guys in Ward 1 all stay good, and submit to the demands of the “King” in order to feed each other. Meanwhile, everyone in Ward 3 is entirely evil; they savage the women sent to them in glee, and not one for a moment pauses to consider the abject horror of their choices. Moore does all she can with the role, but no one has a background or any two-dimensionality, so there’s nothing to work with. The book can afford to be almost entirely metaphorical because, well, it’s a book. Books can do as they damn well please; that’s what makes them superior. A film, on the other hand, has to have something driving it, otherwise it just meanders.

The biggest surprise is the directorial ineptitude on display. Meirelles established himself as one of the most gifted new directors with “City of God,” and, from what I hear, he did a bang-up job with “The Constant Gardener” as well. But here he tires to recapture the alternately gritty and glamorous style of his masterpiece. Much of the film is dark, taking place in the shadow of shadows, making it impossible to piece together a scene. He shows us horrors, but these horrors do not help us understand the story better; they just disgust. Too often the screen changes into a bright, milky white, not only to visualize the “white blindness” but seemingly because Meirelles feels like it. This effect drifts in and out of thematic relevance to the point that it undermines the times it's used correctly.

Recently groups of blind people protested that the film (and the book, I assume) painted a negative portrait of the blind. I won’t say that they fail to see the point because that would be crass, but there is a definite misunderstanding; blindness is used only as a macguffin to bring out panic and base instincts in these people. To be fair, though, the allegory was a little thin as a book, and the lack of subtlety on display here could offend just about anyone. If you want to see a good film about a mysterious, unexplained disease that brings about a terrifying image of what man can regress to, watch “Children of Men.” Or stick to the novel.