MovieChat Forums > The Limits of Control (2009) Discussion > Symbolism...please add, correct, help

Symbolism...please add, correct, help


symbolism (please be patient...I’m doing my best here)

- Why the transparent raincoat? and transparent umbrella? Emperor’s Clothes? it wasn’t raining. Criss-cross women.
- Sunglasses. Lone Man never wore them. When ‘contacts’ met with him, they took off their own sunglasses. Replaced them when they were leaving.
- “You don’t speak Spanish, right?" (asked in Spanish, many times). “No". So, he could speak Spanish. All reverted to the ‘default’ language, English. None understood that he, indeed, spoke Spanish.
- The American’s toupee. He’s not bald, but he is proud?
- The helicopter. The security team. They didn’t even notice Lone Man.
- Suits exactly the same. Only the color changes. Interesting.
- Matchboxes the same. Only the color changes.
- Messages are gibberish. But he understands.
- “life has no value" on the pickup truck (in Spanish). Whose truck was it? The Mexican’s? The Arab woman’s?
- Schubert was playing when Nude asked him to play Schubert. And Schubert, they say, died of syphilis. PLUS, she wore clear glasses, so she probably understood a few things, too.

I guess this movie is about ‘understanding’ things. How the world works. Reality over illusion (or hallucination). Who’s in control. And the ‘American’ character seemed not to understand the importance of ‘limits’

I’m good at noticing trivial things, but I don’t ‘get’ the ending. In what country did he end up? It appears to be a European city. Paris? Madrid? Why the track suit with what appears to be an emblem of the nation of Ivory Coast? (Liberia? Ghana?) And suddenly he resembles a futbol (soccer) player.

Why do the children assume he's American? Is he a chameleon?

The Boxer. “In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade...but he carries the reminder of every shot that laid him down, or cut him...till he cried out, in his anger and his shame....’I am leaving. I am leaving’. But the fighter still remains’.

Oh, and at end of closing credits, “No Limits, No Control” appears. An important distinction.

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