JIM JARMUSCH’S ‘THE LIMITS OF CONTROL’ “I’m among no one…”

 © 2016 by James Clark 

      Broken Flowers, the Jarmusch film from 2005, has introduced, quite startlingly for a project concerning crushing problematics, a figure who is not hopelessly lost. Carmen, the “animal communicator,” whom protagonist Don regards as having lost her once impressive (to him) rational acuity (as a lawyer), sends him on his way as understood to be a total waste of her time. What makes her so sure of this? The actions of Lone Man, in the film, The Limits of Control (2009), contribute to that understanding, though his career has much more in common with that of the contract killer, Ghost Dog, in the 1999 Jarmusch production of the same name.

Over the past several postings, I have highlighted recurrent pluses and minuses enacted in this filmmaker’s work (and recurrent performers), in witty and heartfelt scenarios, for the sake of awakening viewers to a dilemma like no other, and which would sustain the essential drama far beyond the theatre. Once again, as we get to the nub of The Limits of Control, these currents must be shown in action. But here, instead of concentrating almost entirely upon detailing patterns and personas amid socio-economic preoccupations in the service of reiterating that life on earth is not nearly as lively as it could be, we’ll also look to the cinematography, visual and sonic design and performance as marshalled as never before in a Jim Jarmusch film, in order to embrace the love and ruthlessness evinced by Carmen, and being given a go here by a flamenco troupe, an always-nude hooker and a killer devoted to tai chi. (A very significant shift in sensual delivery appears in the form of the camera work of the brilliant exponent of mood, Christopher Doyle—having lifted many viewers of major works by Wong Kar Wai—replacing here the tenure of Robby Muller, Jarmusch’s long-time stalwart on behalf of kookiness.)

As frequently seen reclining on his bed in murky light, often amidst questionably clean walls and reddish surroundings—and impeccably dressed to kill—Lone Man has been lighted upon by Jean Pierre Melville’s Samourai, from out of the 1967 film of the title, Le Samurai. The film preceding our take on Carmen, namely, Ghost Dog, also placed at the center of its proceedings an avid practitioner of things samurai. But whereas the visual factors (especially camera placement—mid-range— busy movement and objective lighting) of these two misadventures set in relief the personal attributes of the protagonists, Doyle’s strategy (suiting Jarmusch’s takeoff) is to cut all talk out of the central figure and have him repeatedly going over ritualistic positions at mid-distance or close range, whereby he becomes a puzzling intrusion within a diamond-gorgeous surround.

Now, with the familiar incendiary counters pointing all the way back to Antonioni’s Red Desert (1967) by way of De Palma’s Dressed to Kill (1980), let’s settle down with Maestro Doyle as he puts this mystery train on a very different track. The first thing we see is a series of what slightly looks like blue and green rows of expressway lights (infused by ringing and then grinding sounds) as seen from an erratically soaring plane (being far more ambiguous than the big bird soaring at the outset of Ghost Dog). The plunge eventually discloses a roadway of sorts and there is a hissing sound, followed by an epigraph by nineteenth- century French avant-garde poet, Arthur Rimbaud: “As I descended into impossible rivers/ I no longer felt guided by the ferryman.” Promptly back to somewhere on earth looking like nowhere on earth, Doyle gives us the protagonist amid tai chi observances, being observed from directly above, leaving us to wonder if his bentness is a form of cripplement and leaving the manoeuvring to appear to be a form of Houdini bid to break out of an impossibly confining situation. Establishing his being not nearly as helpless as first imagined, we see him leaving his cramped studio not so much as a figure off to work (as Jef, le samourai, would, after fussing idiosyncratically with his fedora); but an integral figure consisting of overriding and radiating body parts as covered by chromatic and textural aspects of his blue-chip wardrobe. With Jef, we had a socio-economic centre (bidding for so much more); here we have a fashion plate more effectively embarking on leaving behind social and economic matters as a more threatening malignancy has made itself felt. While he checks his uncanny presence at a large, charcoal-cool and stainless steel facility, the snippets of his apparel chord not only amongst themselves—his dark grey suit jacket playing upon the dark blue collar of his shirt—but amongst the darkened color and lighting scheme of the take-off hotel, in meeting a world having changed a great deal. Moreover, as Lone Man regards his presence to a suspenseful world, the large-panel mirrors dominating the site disclose not only his deadpan glance upon his person and apparel, but they increase the dispersal of a measure of individuality taken for granted by nearly everyone; but, as things transpire, seriously in doubt by our main man. Doyle’s camera exploits the latter’s dark coffee complexion as placed against the dark-grey key of the fabrics, and the jet-black of his hair, sinking into the charcoal plane of the public washroom. As he leaves that place, the camera has retreated to a distant point the better to—in keeping the view stationary—regard the fragmentation of him, into multiple images, as he moves by the series of mirrors. The configuration here has him both spreading ahead and looping backward. A cut to his boots and pant cuffs as he avails himself of an automatic shoe shine sustains the chromatic play (here with the wheel of the apparatus and its light brown coffee brush chording with his tony black boots and the blue-grey pant cuffs—all being set off by vivid black and white floor tiling) and another odd order of dynamics. Cut, then, to the protagonist en route to his (tricky) business, at a resplendently, shiny-new air terminal where he further undergoes displacement (at mid-range) to the tune of being a silhouette against the now transparent glass of huge window panes ablaze with sunlight—a silhouette on a moving walkway. The frameworks of that backdrop add a minor key as colliding with the return stage on that ride, a while later, and its shimmering glass sidings along the flowing sidewalk.

As to the incident between, Jarmusch shifts the key to a vaguely farcical point, one which we were extensively treated to in face of the Mafiosi in Ghost Dog. Within the multi-film patterning of his introduction of the contours of the unforthcoming nature of humankind, the penchant for—flying in the face of that atmosphere we have just sampled—bulking up on self-importance looms very large. Here the bloodthirsty aspect of the many homicidal routes to advantage is strictly muted; but the same weakness for Byzantine organizational puffery (first putting the bite on us in Night on Earth [1989]) is very evident in the First-Class lounge where Lone Man meets the power-team which has hired him to make themselves feel even more awesome than they suppose themselves feeling at present. As the two amigos run past him the schematic procedures to be followed, Lone Man (having shown us his intuitive preferences, however puzzling) is seen in the gold-tinted V.I.P. haven from a perspective showing him from his shoulders up to his eyes, the screen cutting off his head just above his eyebrows. That is to say, while the little pep talk to him, about to be disclosed, is bullish on lard, he comes to us, if not mean, definitely lean. Whereas the self-styled luminaries (from Victoria, through Dickenson and Sonny, to Winston [this latter being the bearer of the travesty, “Don’t worry. We’re still going to solve the mystery…”]) tended to calculate their blessings in terms of simplistic factors, the new, would-be stars, show a preference for couching their grab in philosophical musings—just the thing for a wiggle room by an undemonstrative –even unwitting—philosophical practitioner in the mediums of silence, motion, color and stillness.

They begin with, “Are you ready? Everything’s cool…” He counters by freezing his eyes and his visage—not cheerleading material. They try the labels they read in getting him aboard: “Use your imagination [but we know he’s already constantly about images]. And your skills…” [the tenor of his presence being proof of an unabated level of control]. One of them frets over a good luck charm. And both of them dig into the form of holy Mass by way of delivering their efforts as responses from higher authority—the first run-through in Creole; then followed by an English translation by a manager who has a wobbly control of English pronunciation, “Everything is subjective. Don’t elaborate… He who thinks he’s bigger than the rest must go to the cemetery… Then he will see what life really is. It’s a handful of dirt.” During all this sentimental resentment and moralistic gush, heavily dependent upon groundless, self-contradictory materialism, Lone Man maintains his initial attitude of lucrative non-confidence toward his amateurish clients. Sensing this gulf, the desperate Creole seeks to impress him with their running on quantum audacity (with, that is, their being players bigger than the rest [though needing to flaunt it]). “The universe has no center and no edges… Reality is arbitrary…” The translator protests, “You want me to translate that? I don’t fuckin’ get it!” The idea-guy concludes, “Forget it.” The two stooges become distracted by two young women in Seventh Heaven with their diamond necklaces which they somehow don’t seem to have paid for from out of their own pockets. One of the preachers jokes, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” We notice, though, that the same fragmented framing touch and chromatic heavenliness covering the protagonist appear in that scene of mutual worshiping, which thereby becomes a sort of window of opportunity whereby one could go farther. Lone Man does not join in the interest toward kept women. But the saga he takes us through takes us up against being a kept man.

Another of the executive prerogatives is to guide our main man by way of codes resting in Boxer matchboxes, as brought to him by a ludicrously over-staffed array of bizarre agents lending their exotic motives to a leaden campaign surprisingly seeing itself, to some extent, as such. Leaving him with the hush-hush clue, “Look for the violin,” and in possession of one of those little boxes (little confinements) to set off an exchange leading to the destination of his (unspoken) payoff, the think tank bows out, leading Lone Man to use those aforementioned shafts of light, the pristine, geometric materials and the range of motion which the airport affords during the embarking for Madrid to bring him back to a very different self than that of his career track. This tension constitutes the discovery of how far the protagonist can coincide with the witty endurance of Broken Flower’s Carmen; or perhaps show us another way to maintain uncanniness amongst a horde having sold out to the laws of “jerking off.” (At a latter stage of his juggling these demands, he encounters a flamenco virtuoso and smiles for the only time in the entire film [quite a contrast to actor Isaach de Bankole’s Raymond in Ghost Dog, nearly always sending out a smile]. Before entering the flamenco club where a link to tai chi is evident, he notices on the cobblestones many scarlet petals, broken flowers.)

The airline is Air Lumiere [Radiant Flight] and Lone Man’s entry into Madrid is entranced by a searchlight of a rock soundtrack (by Japanese band, Boris) very successfully evoking the thrilling heart of 21^st century city life, in its brimming rhythms, as somewhat enjoying the legacy of 20^th century jazz as germane to 20^th century urbanity. His designated hotel is a study in itself—an oldish bunker-tower resembling a fortress but (sketchily) revamped inside to slightly rise to boutique-hotel chic (and therein the same mish-mash the bosses settle for)—and thereby roughly congenial to our trendy protagonist.On the plane, he had opened the beckoning matchbox, read the tiny note pad with its code as to the first steps and then washed it down with one of the two cups of espresso he had lined up on his spacious, business class dining area. The tai chi precision of those diminutive vessels(also marked by three black parallel lines) comprises an ongoing pristine ceremony here, in (not quite) direct contradiction to the over-the-top histrionics associated with the kitschy missives and the missionaries appearing in waves of know-how which the object of their attention silently dismisses as instances of life’s dirty tricks, if not unfortunately, at least very rigorously, his to clean up as best he can.

Alone at the poorly renovated Brutalist-style hulk, he opens with a feathery tai chi pick-me-up dynamic, followed by stillness on his bed, very like le samourai’s means of scoping a very big plane crash. Then he lays down the law to the young coffee waiter at a square, who thought that a suburban 2-cupper was the equivalent of 2 separate urban gems (a tiny step forward in control of a very large mudslide). Pigeons swarming at the rooftop of an adjacent building speak to that other ritualistic warrior, Ghost Dog and his opting—like samourai Jef—for suicide. (No such denouement is in store for Lone Man; and herewith we are on notice to ponder the contrast.) More details to the point of his following directions to chill out for the first few days, he ponders a room full of paintings in a museum—yes, Dressed to Kill is on the case—and plays from memory that encouraging musical welcome, we just mentioned, to the best of Madrid. The mood riser once again gives us to understand that something more resilient is in the air. After leaving this scene of barely perceptible struggle for equilibrium, he sees a black helicopter darkening the mood, and we see that Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001) has come North to see who’s a man. (We should keep in mind, going forward, this Islamic militant aspect of the friction Lone Man has bought into.) Thus ensues a stream of decidedly lesser beings on the payroll of those bankrupt executives given much scope to show they’d rather be a handful of melodramatic dirt than human beings.

The first thrust of that bucket brigade, occurring at the espresso bar on the innocuous square, emphasises the emotive extremism pervasive with this corporation. The violin head’s up at the V.I.P. lounge materializes in the form of an unhinged musician who is more than eager to tell his bemused listener that the instrument he carries is magical in the sense of its wood storing forever every note played on it. (Broken Flower’s Carmen’s intuitive lucidity about her dying dog being pointedly different, despite Don’s cheap dismissal.) Washing down the next signpost and handing over the confirmation (also enclosed in the warrior-illustrated little box), he finds on his bed a young and nude woman (being, in accordance with the cheesy tenor of the job, anticipated—B-movie style—by such a figure at the museum-cum-spa), having broken into his room in a fit of over-activity. Having appropriated his hand-gun and asking, “Do you like my ass?” she remains a person of interest insofar as she has taken up the mantle of that lively sprite keeping Red Desert’s Giuliana sane. Being an apparition with loads of confidence and physical beauty, she, with her sassy gambit, elicits from her his “Yes” [I like your ass]. With this odd liaison still on the burner, another “passionate” and delusional contact makes (unlike the intruder) underwhelming contact. She’s a tall woman with washed-out complexion and an all-white cowboy outfit, eager, like the Cowboy in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, to sustain the dominance of the status quo. Her vehemence settles upon old-timey movies. “The little details of life… The best films are like dreams… [dreams being a banana peel of Ghost Dog’s samurai creed]. You’re never really sure what you really have…” Proceeding with ancient precepts she eventually chirps, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend…” But in the midst of this dedication to the past, she, like her bosses, dabbles in the up-to-date, a pretense with no substance. “I like films where nothing seems to be happening.” Then she gets back to showing her true colors: “Have you seen The Lady from Shanghai? That one makes no sense. It’s like a game. Deception. Shattered mirrors. She dies in the end…”Lone Man, whom we have seen thriving on fragmentary mirrors, clearly does not enjoy her passion or her company. Their little box exchange results in diamonds, those friends, for her and a Sevilla destination for him. But before leaving his unsteady muse she gives him a little more to remember her by. His “liking” could not fully coexist with his sombre job, leading to their insomniac embrace over several nights. The last night, though, she shows up in the tropical-blue rooftop pool (a long way from Ghost Dog’s rooftop), an element of Giuliana’s strong feelings. Then they sit together listening to a Schubert string quartet. She, perhaps sliding into “passionate” melodrama—having intoned, after all, “That leaves one more night for our beautiful love story”—emotes, “I love him [Schubert]. He died when he was 31.”

Soon after rolling South, a premium on a degree of learnedness asserts itself upon Lone Man’s acreage of food for thought. The landscape rolling by would constitute something of an old friend; but the woman interrupting that roll would never come close to being a welcome surprise. Played by Japanese actress, Youki Kudoh, who, in Mystery Train exerted, for all her bright ideas, a drag upon her boyfriend’s muddled but engaging aspiration, here she strides along the aisle of the train, smartly places the matchbox at his counter and leads him to a vacant dining car where she could regale him at length with her many theories. (“Matchbox” being a major title in the discography of rocker, Carl Perkins, who had gained the boyfriend as a fan, unlike the girlfriend, who much preferred more mainstream, Elvis.) Lone Man catches up to her in seating like the one the mystery mavens rode into Memphis; but here the mystery has been choked off from the get-go. “Are you interested in science, by any chance? I’m interested in molecules. The Sufi say each one of us is a planet spinning in ecstasy. But I say each one of us is a set of shifting molecules. Spinning in ecstasy. In the near future worn out things will be made new again by reconfiguring their molecules…” From across the table, Lone Man gives a low grade to this idolatry, in the usual way—by setting his strong features as if he were an Emergency Department medic seeing a hopeless case. She’s picked up the boss’ mantra, “The universe has no center and no edges;” just as she’s added a pinch of Sufi mysticism, to conjure away the danger of an era she’d rather not live in. Then she turns to the simple information at hand. “Wait 3 days. The Guitar will find you.” And she has a bit of scandal to share. “Among us are those who are not among us…” He replies rather brusquely and inaudibly, “I’m among no one…”

In Sevilla, actor, John Hurt—who, in Dead Man, played the part of a figure living for seeing disaster—provides the guitar, a string of which is meant to assassinate an arch-criminal. By way of this the new facilitator sneers at a group of “Bohemians” (like William Blake) and expresses adoration for a Finnish version of La Boheme (this latter oddity stretching back to the dirge that was the fifth installment of Life on Earth). His part of the peculiar endeavor also involves telling Lone Man, “The Mexican will find you…” The night beforethis dead-weight, there had been some real take-off during a rehearsal for a flamenco performance, the dancer’s arms and hands and sudden twists of her torso being instruments bringing to life the expanse as far more than mere “space.” Detailing these twists as never more necessary here, where the protagonist smiles, first very slightly, and then broadly in giving applause, and in doing so belying his declaration, “I’m among no one.” Lone Man is, though not explicitly nor even definitely, moonlighting on behalf of kinship, and here he is not remiss in admitting it.

Therefore the actual assassination is in the far more than a primitive in a primitive world history. Lone Man becomes therewith, much more absorbing after the “climax” and after the film is over, just as Carmen haunts us after Broken Flowers.

Lone Man boards another train the interior with its chic corridor of which resembling that of the train which the protagonist of Antonioni’s L’Avventura uses in her desperate efforts to find a missing friend, who in fact never returns. On arrival at a rural station resembling that of Charles Bronson’s grandiose total war entrance in Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western, Once upon a Time in the West, he confronts an elderly lady smiling shyly on a bench. The march from there to the fortification (almost as heavily armed as the Pentagon, replete with a fleet of black choppers) is deliberately tedious. The sudden, impossible penetration into that fortress and the office of the Prince of Evil (played by the actor, Bill Murray, who, as regular guy Don in Broken Flowers, is a piece of work without his present incarnation’s profanity and its John-Hurt anti-Bohemianism) constitutes filmic guitar smashing. Similarly, back at the point of first departure, our dual-track same league—even more so—of Roberto’s jailbreak in Down by Law. Jarmusch pushes such narrative factors to total absurdity, letting them fall away like flimsy melodramas of no account to a grown-up audience, leaving thereby the cogent impression of the protagonist’s being

protagonist changes into a track suit and disappears in a shattering jump cut, thereby also taking a graceless scramble like Mystery Train’s Luisa and Ghost Dog’s Louie. The hooker/lover had been (incredibly)found murdered, the Cowboy’s being apprehended by the gang having something to do with it. But his mourning for her not only signals his creative motives but also that the wider sphere must be his true destination.

The too-good-to-be-true nocturnal escape with his mob-approved middle-aged female driver(or cabby—never to be mistaken as Corky in Night on Earth ) reminds us of Lynch’s Lost Highway. So does that same motorist’s amazing slo-mo entrance into her half-ton. Remember flawed but lively Alice looking fabulous on entering Mr. Eddy’s big black sedan while the strains of “This Magic Moment” give off the most divided lift? Far from Old School Social Media. (Lone Man’s campaign of dispensing with “the ferryman” also makes common cause, by way of inspiration, with Jack, the hit man and coffee aficionado, cooling his heels in rural Italian town squares, in Anton Corbijn’s great and sadly unknown, The American [2010].) But the Surrealist tornado rocking this denouement is also far from the operative’s little truck and its nihilist slogan, “Life is worthless” [La Vida No Vale Nada]—spoken like an entitled jerk-off “militant.” Lone Man’s real coup—overtaking a surreal dizziness—was in acquiring a compass. Would he profit from it the way Giuliana did (and still does for those of us who know the territory)? Was Alice too much a hillbilly for all this? Or do Lynch and Jarmusch form a loose partnership the heart of which began long before them and will persist long after them?