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La vida no vale nada
May. 21st, 2009 08:33 amSaw Jim Jarmusch's new movie, The Limits of Control (2009), at the Egyptian last night. I'm not sure what I think of it. As I just described it in e-mail to a friend, "Visually mesmerizing, but the dialog and structure seemed pretty glib and precious."
The cinematography is by Christopher Doyle, who is probably most famous for his work with Wong Kar Wai. It really is amazing to look at, probably beyond my ability to describe, although one thing I would say is that the camera holds an overt dialogue with a variety of paintings in a Madrid museum. At times I felt that the title of the movie should be The Limits of Representation. Some of the compositions are very abstract, too, but there are also a lot of landscapes and lots and lots of portraits of the lead character played by Isaach De Bankolé.
The "story", to the extent there is one, consists of a series of encounters between Bankolé (called the Lone Man, and apparently a killer) and various people who spout philosophy on the topic of art, music, film, science, and bohemianism before exchanging match books containing mysterious codes that he swallows. It has the air of a thriller or crime film, but the repetitious structure and pace of an art film. It's the philosophy spouted that seems particularly glib, but there's also an ironic attitude toward the proceedings that seems way too arch to me. I've had this problem with other Jarmusch films, even the one I like the best of the four I've seen, Dead Man. There's a winking going on that seems less knowing than "gee, isn't this clever?" For instance, there's a scene in this movie where Tilda Swinton, waxing rhapsodic on film, says she loves movies where people just sit there without talking. Does she actually look at the camera, or just at the Lone Man? In any event, she gives a Meaningful Look, and then they sit there without talking. I dunno. That seemed pretty sophomoric to me, but maybe I just don't get the joke.
Still, the visuals were endlessly cool, and I mean that in the way that colors are used, too. Also the way that they played with different media, switching from film to video, or switching from what looked like back projection of real landscapes to what looked like back projection of miniature landscapes -- subtly artificial in both cases. Definitely playing with how movies -- and art in general -- express or distort reality. But are the banal philosophy and winking performances intended as another distancing device, or is it really supposed to be clever and funny? At times I felt like this was a soulmate of Alex Cox's Straight to Hell, where a cool cast got together in Spain and hammed it up without a script. Jarmusch had a bit part in that, so maybe it really is one of the spiritual ancestors.
Well, I hadn't intended to write this much, because this is a movie that needs a second viewing to get past defeated expectations.
The cinematography is by Christopher Doyle, who is probably most famous for his work with Wong Kar Wai. It really is amazing to look at, probably beyond my ability to describe, although one thing I would say is that the camera holds an overt dialogue with a variety of paintings in a Madrid museum. At times I felt that the title of the movie should be The Limits of Representation. Some of the compositions are very abstract, too, but there are also a lot of landscapes and lots and lots of portraits of the lead character played by Isaach De Bankolé.
The "story", to the extent there is one, consists of a series of encounters between Bankolé (called the Lone Man, and apparently a killer) and various people who spout philosophy on the topic of art, music, film, science, and bohemianism before exchanging match books containing mysterious codes that he swallows. It has the air of a thriller or crime film, but the repetitious structure and pace of an art film. It's the philosophy spouted that seems particularly glib, but there's also an ironic attitude toward the proceedings that seems way too arch to me. I've had this problem with other Jarmusch films, even the one I like the best of the four I've seen, Dead Man. There's a winking going on that seems less knowing than "gee, isn't this clever?" For instance, there's a scene in this movie where Tilda Swinton, waxing rhapsodic on film, says she loves movies where people just sit there without talking. Does she actually look at the camera, or just at the Lone Man? In any event, she gives a Meaningful Look, and then they sit there without talking. I dunno. That seemed pretty sophomoric to me, but maybe I just don't get the joke.
Still, the visuals were endlessly cool, and I mean that in the way that colors are used, too. Also the way that they played with different media, switching from film to video, or switching from what looked like back projection of real landscapes to what looked like back projection of miniature landscapes -- subtly artificial in both cases. Definitely playing with how movies -- and art in general -- express or distort reality. But are the banal philosophy and winking performances intended as another distancing device, or is it really supposed to be clever and funny? At times I felt like this was a soulmate of Alex Cox's Straight to Hell, where a cool cast got together in Spain and hammed it up without a script. Jarmusch had a bit part in that, so maybe it really is one of the spiritual ancestors.
Well, I hadn't intended to write this much, because this is a movie that needs a second viewing to get past defeated expectations.
