The Limits of Control

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Movie
German title The Limits of Control
Original title The Limits of Control
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2009
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Jim Jarmusch
script Jim Jarmusch
production Gretchen McGowan ,
Stacey E. Smith
music Boris
Sunn O)))
camera Christopher Doyle
cut Jay Rabinowitz
occupation

The Limits of Control (German alternative title: "The mysterious killer") is a feature film by Jim Jarmusch from 2009 .

action

A taciturn man arrives at a Madrid airport and is sent on a mysterious journey through Spain. Again and again he meets mysterious people who swap matchboxes with him according to ritualized recognition phrases. These contain small pieces of paper with three lines of letters and numbers each. The man reads the notes and swallows them with espresso coffee. While his partners hold pseudo-philosophical and poetic monologues at the meetings (whereby what is being said becomes almost incomprehensible because the background noise gradually predominates), while some sentences are varied over and over, the lonely person hardly says a word. Between meetings he sits in cafes, where he always orders two espressos, looks at pictures in the museum, spends the nights awake and dressed in bed and does tai chi exercises. He always rejects the seduction attempts of a naked woman who occasionally appears in a hotel room: "Never while I work."

Finally the lonely arrives by train and through another contact in the Spanish wilderness to a heavily guarded property, in front of which black limousines are parked. A helicopter that has been seen over and over again lands. The lonely one penetrates the property “through his imagination”. He has a very brief, cryptic conversation with an American who scornfully reveals that he has absolutely no idea what makes the world go by. The lonely man strangles the American with a guitar string, as ordered, after which he returns to Madrid. Once there, he changed into a toilet in the Atocha train station , disposed of his “service suit” in the locker and left the place.

background

The film title "The Limits of Control" is borrowed from an essay title by the underground literary writer and poet William S. Burroughs , one of Jarmusch's favorite poets. The script was initially kept very narrow at 25 pages, the dialogues only emerged during the shooting.

In order to give the viewer the feeling of being “on a trip ”, Jarmusch only selected the unclean and unsuccessful shots for the hit man's taxi ride from Madrid airport into the city. “The viewer should see the new world entirely through the eyes of the hero and feel how the impressions storm on him.” Jarmusch also increased the impression of visual authenticity through the choice of film material. Instead of the "very saturated, bright Kodak colors", he and his cameraman Chris Doyle used a "rather pale material from Fuji ".

Jim Jarmusch has been friends with the main actor Isaac de Bankolé for 25 years. What he values ​​about his acting skills is the impressive physical presence with minimal facial expressions and gestures, which gives him an "unheard of expressiveness".

Regarding his image compositions in the film, Jarmusch said: “It is my goal that the audience see such images as if they were paintings. And that when they leave the cinema, they perceive these objects completely differently. The story is secondary. There is a story, but rather hidden. I like to leave out the dramatic things. I'm more interested in the characters and their interactions. I show how my characters look at things and how time goes by. "

reception

The film polarizes, dividing viewers and critics into two camps. While some complain that it does not meet their expectations of a conventional thriller, others welcome or admire the way in which the film tells a story, transports moods and creates images.

The Limits of Control opened in select US theaters on May 1, 2009. The film critics there rated him mostly negatively. The US film portal Rotten Tomatoes counted only 32% positive out of 73 reviews and even described the film experience as “tiring” and “with little reward”. The dubbed version of the film was released in Germany on May 28, 2009.

Andreas Kilb of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described The Limits of Control as "not a simple piece of cinema entertainment, and so many critics would quickly finish with the film: elitist, minimalist, incomprehensible, that's what the texts of colleagues in America say ..." [... ] In contrast, he thinks, "the dead places in the cities in the midday light - all of this has long been described (and painted by Dalí and De Chirico ), but it has never been seen like this in the cinema." Kilb considers the film to be "on." the height of its time ”.

Tobias Kniebe from the Süddeutsche Zeitung described the film as “Minimal Cinema”, as Jarmusch followed “ritual, slowness, reduction and codification” with particular “rigor” this time. Kniebe accepts the "extreme [.] Shortage of his means, up to an almost complete renunciation of plot, logic of action and character development". On the other hand, he considers the end of the film to be "shitty if you've made such a huge attempt beforehand."

Ruprecht Skasa-Weiß from the Stuttgarter Zeitung considers the film to be a “thrill refusal film”, an “anti-thriller” and “ film essay , born out of the intention to think about the essence of reality.” […] “Repetition, repetition, déjà- écouté dialogues - they are the most important dramaturgical means of visually powerful film ”[…]“ The short coffee table colleges structure the film in a strangely academic manner . So device, The Limits of Control 'a ver puzzle th reflection on perception, reality and imagination. Only the calm, the precision of the gaze decides what should come into reality; whether a painting, viewed in the Museo Nacional , or a landscape, viewed through the train window: both are a picture, both are reality. "

Georg Seeßlen felt sympathy and pleasure for the film. Once again Jarmusch is changing the pattern of a film genre in a “highly poetic game” , namely the “conspiracy thriller”:
“ The Limits of Control is less a story than a cinematic installation : images - paintings, metaphors, quotations and attitudes - create images. Each setting could also be hung as an art print in the living room. Every line of dialogue could find its way into a volume of poetry. Every actor appearance is an independent performance. And all that set in motion with the great music of Boris and Sunn O))) in this wonderful flow, as only Jarmusch understands it. On the other hand, none of this is particularly exciting. Despite the dangers, despite naked women in hotel rooms, despite an oppressive murder scene. But Jim Jarmusch's films were never about being excited or getting excited anyway. Rather, what is achieved is cinematic states between comedy, poetry and contemplation, between Dada and Buddha , which make your heart open when you are in the right mood. "

The ZDF emphasized the direction of the cameraman: "Magnificently composed tableaus and furious tracking shots - in the latest thriller by Jim Jarmusch, cameraman Christopher Doyle shows his outstanding talent."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Approval certificate for The Limits of Control . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2009 (PDF; test number: 117 845 K).
  2. ↑ a b Boris , English Wikipedia
  3. ^ William S. Burroughs : The Limits of Control or BurroughsControl
  4. ↑ Teresa Corceiro: “A different kind of conspiracy. Jim Jarmusch's "The Limits Of Control" “ , 3sat , Kulturzeit , May 26, 2009 with video , 4:13 min.
  5. ↑ Karen Schoemer: “On The Lower East Side With: Jim Jarmusch; Film as Life, and Vice Versa " , New York Times , April 29, 1992
  6. ↑ a b "Interview with director Jim Jarmusch" , moviepilot.de, May 2, 2009
  7. ↑ Lars-Olav Beier : “The film industry is at an end” , Spiegel Online , May 29, 2009, interview with Jarmusch
  8. ^ Daniel Kothenschulte : “Cinema as a declaration of love to artificiality” , Frankfurter Rundschau , May 28, 2009, interview with Jarmusch
  9. ↑ Jan-Christoph Wiechmann: I study mushrooms and catalog birds ( memento from February 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), stern , May 28, 2009, interview with Jarmusch
  10. ↑ a b Tobias Kniebe: “To the point, sweetheart” ( Memento from May 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 27, 2009
  11. ↑ Georg Seeßlen : "The Limits of Control" , epd Film , No. 6, 2009
  12. ^ The Limits of Control Movie Reviews, Pictures. Rotten Tomatoes, accessed on May 31, 2009 : "The Limits of Control is a tedious viewing experience with little reward."
  13. ↑ Andreas Kilb: Desired Fantasy: Jarmusch's "Limits of Control". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , accessed on May 31, 2009 .
  14. ↑ Ruprecht Skasa-Weiß: A film on the border ( memento from June 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Stuttgarter Zeitung , May 28, 2009
  15. ↑ Markus Metz & Georg Seeßlen : “The Limits of Control - The Films by Jim Jarmusch”, WDR 5 , May 26, 2009;
      see. also Georg Seeßlen: "The Limits of Control" , epd Film , No. 6, 2009
  16. ↑ Josef Nagel, Ursula Beyer: "new in the cinema: The Limits of Control", ZDF , May 27, 2009, 4:06 min.

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