The Limits of Control

Jim Jarmusch
2009

For me there's nothing more exciting, and in this case compelling, than a new Jim Jarmusch picture in theaters. I was a touch disappointed with his prior "Broken Flowers" (2005), feeling it fit too snugly into the time's twee and melancholy zeitgeist, erected by Wes Anderson and copied by many. This time around Jarmusch eschews any type of familiarity, offering a picture that is strongly abstract, symbolic, cerebral, and visual. A permanently smooth Isaach De Bankole is the hired gun in this most pared-down of mission films, encountering a series of colorful and distinctive operatives on his way towards a concrete goal. The reigning champion of purposeful casting, Jarmusch is able to lend weight to mere cameos through an actor's personality and physicality alone. John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray and Gael Garcia Bernal all float in frame, say their piece, and float back out carried aloft by quirks and costuming. Christopher Doyle's cinematography is the red-blooded heart of the picture, which is interesting considering Jarmusch's predilection for total auteurism. The imagery, heavy on contrast, saturation, and natural light, helps create the alien landscapes and ghost towns the director coaxes out of his Spanish locales.