Just because you don't get it...

[deleted]

I need to agree that I liked Broken Flowers and didnt like Limits of Control. In BF there was some story line and it wasnt as annoying as in LoC - in which the same old espresso, the matches and the whole eating of the note thing.

I didnt mind that he killed without a gun - but the last 10 minutes of the movie were worth something and the rest was just boring. The whole deal with the diamonds he found in the cup meeting with the Spanish guy, and the diamonds he gave to the naked lady in his first hotel. What was the reason for those details to fill in the story line.

I understand the whole reason to film a somewhat surrealist movie - I respect that. But surrealist movie like "Pi" had some things that make sense - in LoC i didnt find any sense. I liked watching Spain and its architecture but other than that the long scenes of him laying in bed , meditating were boring. You can say that same thing Robert Redford does in his movies but they dont make you fall asleep.

Maybe i'm missing something, maybe i'm too young but I couldnt understand it beyond my understandable "Limit" :P

I realise this reply is more than six years old, but I still wanted to comment =)

I guess that a lot of this comes down to what people personally decide the film wants to be, and they judge it depending on which side they go with.

You say that referring to film conventions – and I think that's the main thing the entire film is really doing – can work if it's done in a way that calls attention to the absurdities, but not if it tries to be deep. Well, I like this film a lot and never would have had the idea that it was trying to be deep or philosophical. Poetic, yes, but only in the photography, pacing and soundtrack.

But "calling attention to the absurdities of film conventions" would pretty much be how I would sum up The Limits of Control in one line. Everything it does, from plot elements, to locations, scenes, characters, dialogues, is a blurry average of movie clichés. Same as all the bland mainstream movies, it just copies all the themes people are familiar with. But first, it puts them together in a way that makes so little sense, it makes it impossible for the viewer to not realise how unrealistic and overused and pointless most of them are.

And then, still comfortable in recognising all the elements from 500 other films they've seen, the viewer still thinks they know what to expect to happen. Because all the 500 other films were really the same, so why would this one be any different? And then it is, by not really doing anything (I personally think the ending was way too explicit and somewhat against the point the rest of the film was making).

I didn't really see any aspirations to be philosophical. The philosophically-sounding lines are so out of context and generic that they couldn't be anything more than a parody – on exactly that kind of film, that tries to be deep but has nothing new to say.

And I think the film being strongly disliked by many viewers is kind of inevitable, because it fits with the point it was trying to make: making people think they know what to expect, by shamelessly copying from movie history like way too many mainstream films these days do, but then deliberately ending up not being that.

"It's a tonal piece."

I think it's a conceptual piece, poking fun at genre films. An action movie with no action, a suspense thriller with no real drama or suspense. Jarmusch has been doing this since Down By Law, but he used to seem interested in delivering his message while still presenting a film that is engaging. It seems perhaps that since genre films are taking over more and more- comedy, horror, action, sci-fi seem to be the only films being made these days he feels the need to get more extreme with his style. I just hope he doesn't continue in this direction or he is going to alienate most of his fans.

I think there's plenty to engage the viewer here, you just need to recalibrate your sensibility a bit. As for the complaints about lack of narrative, go away and check out recent work by Kiarostami or Lynch, or earlier work by Greenaway, Antonioni or Rivette. Storytelling is not the only game in town.

By the way, there's nothing inherently wrong with pretentious, in my view. If you don't reach further, you'll never grasp anything new.


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

There's a lot more in the dialogue upon rewatch it isn't as nonsensical as it seems I feel everything is there and there can be a few interpretations to what the film is about.I thought the main character had actually passed away and this was him living through his subconcious in a very dreamlike state. I think there are a lot of interpretations that can be taken from along the way every person he meets seems like some sort of clue I felt. Bill Murray's character gives away the most but still in a very cryptic manner as it's hard to decipher what he's referring to as "control". When American asks Lone Man How did you get in here? To which he replies I used my imagination only adds to the fact that there is some sort of dream state going on here.

I thought the people he met could have been people he had killed in his life. There was always a looming state of paranoia none of them would drink from him in a fear of being poisoned. Bill Murray's character "American" says "I suppose by eliminating me you will be eliminating control over some *beep* artificial reality" I almost saw Bill Murray as a Devil like controller over the subconcious afterlife. American also says before the guitar string is out that "your minds have been so polutted with crap... you have no idea how the real world works" another clear explanation would be he's some sort of Politician but I feel there was very much a deeper meaning to what he said.

I've been thinking about the way the film ended also coming almost back full circle as if he could have to live through this dreamlike afterlife perpetually. That song the man sings "Send him to the cemetery, so he can see how the world works" then the woman repeats those lines I definitely think this was Lone Man's afterlife and it was a reflection on how he'd lived his life.

I can't help but being vague as I have to watch again but this is definitely a film open to interpretation I'll watch again and see what else I see within it. The quote from John Hurt's guitar character and on the back of the truck says La Vida Non Vale Nada which means roughly Life Is Not Worth Anything that's further proof I feel that life and afterlife is just some ongoing subconcious thought up by us.