Mark Farnsworth is currently reviewing selected films from the London Film Festival.
In Jim Jarmusch’s latest, Issach De Bankole’s Lone Man is a god carved from onyx and iron. Bullets and knives, arrows and rocks would simply bounce off of his tonic suit as he glides serenely between travelators and escalators. To expend just one extra ounce of energy would be a weakness, a chink in his armour of perfection. He is a silent torpedo launched on a forward trajectory by the murky forces that inhabit the edges of such films.
“You don’t speak Spanish, do you?” His contacts, Creole and French, are the first to hit the Lone Man up with this running gag. He may not speak it, but he sure as hell understands the language. This deity understands all language. Creole knows this too, as he looks upon the granite figure before him. The Lone Man will succeed in his endeavours, but what are they? Looking like that, though, how could he possibly fail?
Eccentric, fearless music swells as we are in the cab with this black Lee Marvin. Hairs flick up like switchblades on our neck and arms as we take the ride of a lifetime, a disjointed montage of laser sharp images as we approach Madrid. What a film this journey promises as the score bullies us into feverish anticipation of the set pieces to come. “The Limits of Control” is “Heat,” Jim Jarmusch-style.
The Lone Man holes up in the Torres Blancas, structures that look like they have fallen to Earth from Cloud City or Olympus. He never sleeps, just waits, fully dressed or practising his perfect tai chi forms. At times he orders “two espressos in separates cups” from a bamboozled waiter – as precise as Michael Caine’s assassin in “Get Carter,” who demands a “thin glass.”
On occasion, The Lone Man studies paintings in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina, a statue himself. Does he draw inspiration from them, or does he use them as portals to continue his unnamed mission: cryptic post cards conjuring Alice In Wonderland characters that become “curiouser and curiouser” as the film develops.
Jarmusch paints the Lone Man’s contacts as highly conspicuous, they all stick out like Tex Avery sore thumbs. Does it really matter? As Tilda Swinton’s Angelica Huston replica says, “The best films are like dreams you’re not sure you had.” She’s right. We could be watching the Lone Man’s stylised version of events, making his idle waiting more palatable by imagining his various meetings populated by international film stars.
“The Limits Of Control” demands that we use our imagination to fill in the blanks. Jarmusch only gives us the bare minimum of a narrative to work with – a man on a mission. This could be the most pretentious film you’ve ever seen, or the most rewarding. Like Seijun Suzuki did with “Tokyo Drifter,” Jarmusch credits his audience with a lot of intelligence. They know how movies work.
As a result, the criminal conspiracy is all over the place, like a Richard Stark novel, but we need to look into ourselves to solve it. A clue can be found in William S. Burroughs’ essay of the same name. In the last paragraph the writer states, “A government is never more dangerous than when embarking on a self-defeating or downright suicidal course.” But then again…