The Limits of Control (2009) - Jarmusch hits career low with idea-bereft embarrassment

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+ Most Deserved Flop of the Year

A 1970's styled poster for Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control

A suit-wearing foreign man lands in Madrid, Spain. Always well-dressed, day by day, he meets mysterious people and does mysterious things, following an inscrutable agenda.

The Limits of Control is the 10th feature from Ohioan master writer/director Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man (1995)). As an admirer of Jarmusch's body of work, one goes along for a while here with cool Isaach De Bankolé (The Fifth Patient (2007)) to a Madrid café, to zen atmosphere and hipster-philosophizing strangers.
The film becomes involuntarily comical, as Jarmusch introduces Paz de la Huerta (Nail Polish (2006)) as an eternally nude sex kitten, - whatever is he going with this element? And from there The Limits of Control walks into deeper and deeper waters of embarrassment and the mindnumbingly boring. Small fragments of ideas are drawn out under a guitar-milling soundscape, as an abundance of stars appear for someone they greatly admire despite his project lacking any real structure or backbone here.
Stagnant shots that idolize Madrid fill out repetitive scenes, which promote Jarmusch's musician-ishly thin, existential philosophies. The Limits of Control is a very vaguely spun, pretentious double espresso of sleep-inducing hipster porridge, which hurts to watch for Jarmusch fans, as it is his worst film up to its release.

Related posts:

Jim Jarmusch: 2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
Broken Flowers (2005) - Hip search for son and self with Jarmusch and Murray
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) - Pleasant, precious vignette sit-down with some wonderful people    
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) - Whitaker serves ancient samurai justice in Jarmusch's cool treat   
Dead Man (1995) - Jarmusch's bold, poetic, rich Americana masterpiece 
Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  
Down by Law (1986) - Jarmusch's jailbreak movie is an independent character gem

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 1.9 mil. $
= Uncertain - but almost certainly a flop, and likely a mega-flop
[The Limits of Control was released 1 May (USA) and runs 116 minutes. Shooting took place in Spain, including Madrid. The film opened #41 to an 18k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, its 3rd biggest market, where it widened to 27 cinemas but never attained a higher rank, grossing 426k $ (22.4 % of the total gross). The biggest and 2nd biggest markets were Germany with 812k $ (42.7 %) and France with 302k $ (15.9 %). If the film was made on a small 5 mil. $ budget, it only returned 0.38 times its cost, making it a mega-flop. Roger Ebert gave the film a ½/4 star review, equal to its rating here. Jarmusch returned with Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). Bankolé returned in White Material (2009). The Limits of Control is rotten at 42 % with a 5.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Limits of Control?

Cría Cuervos/Cría!/Raise Ravens (1976) or, Mother Never Lets Go

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The poignant poster for Carlos Saura's Cría Cuervos

QUICK REVIEW:

Ana is a girl who lives in Madrid during Franco's dictatorship with her general father, her depressed housewife mother and her two siblings. Ana witnesses her mother's death struggle and tries to poison her father. The grown-ups spare their children nothing, which vitiates them. Ana sees her mother everywhere.

This fateful portrayal of a family is an outstanding, tragic film, which can be viewed literally, as Ana's story; symbolically, as a Freudian mother-nightmare, (SPOILER Ana even recounts her story in her late mother's figure); or metaphorically/politically, as an inventory of Spain in the Franco-years.
English-born pop-singer Jeanette's Porque te Vas plays as a musical motif in this pretty advanced yet accessible film, which came out to acclaim and popularity the year after Franco's death.
It is directed by great Spanish director Carlos Saura (Peppermint Frappé (1967)), who had fathered a son with Geraldine Chaplin (The Impossible/Lo Imposible (2012)), who plays Ana's mother, at the time of Cría Cuervos. The title means 'raise ravens' and comes from the Spanish proverb, 'Raise ravens, and they'll take out your eyes.'
Saura has offered his perspective on this psychological family-themed drama with these words:
"Cria Cuervos is a sad film, yes. But that's part of my belief that childhood is one of the most terrible parts in the life of a human being. What I'm trying to say is that at that age you've no idea where it is you are going, only that people are taking you somewhere, leading you, pulling you and you are frightened. You don't know where you're going or who you are or what you are going to do. It's a time of terrible indecision."

Watch the trailer for this extraordinary film with English subtitles here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown, although admissions and reports make me count it as a box office success
[Cría Cuervos was the 6th highest grossing Spanish film in 1976, Saura's biggest hit up to that point. It won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, was Golden Globe-nominated as Best Foreign Film and drew 1.2 mil. and 1.5 mil. admissions in Spain and France, respectively. It was also, reportedly, a hit in other foreign markets including the States, which solidified Saura's status as the best known Spanish director internationally. Cría Cuervos was also Spain's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, but did not receive a nomination.]

What do you think of Cría Cuervos?
Other Saura-films that are worth looking for?

Live Flesh/Carne Trémula (1997) or, A Spanish Fix

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+ Best Erotic Movie of the Year + Best Spanish Movie of the Year

Red-hot poster for Pedro Almodóvar's Live Flesh

QUICK REVIEW:

A true 'ménage a cinq' [five!] is the source of the plot in this erotic-romantic drama-thriller, which could only have come from Spain's very own, the incomparable Pedro Almodóvar (Bad Education (2004)).
The story of the bus-born Victor, who is unfortunate enough to end up in prison and from then on seriously ends up in a spider's web of troubles; between two women and their men.
Live Flesh is a sensual, passionate film with lovely actors. But it isn't as visually stunning as some of Almodóvar's other films, especially more recent ones such as the eminent Talk to Her/Habla con Ella (2002).

 

Related post:

 

1997 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Liberto Rabal betwen someone's legs in Pedro Almodóvar's sensual, erotic Live Flesh

See the trailer here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 1.7 mil. $ (US only)
= Uncertainty

What do you think of Live Flesh?
What is Almodóvar's hottest film in your opinion?

Labyrinth of Passion/Laberinto de Pasiones (1982) - Sexual mix-ups in screwball Madrileña style

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One telling, humorously ambiguous poster, ripe with sexual innuendo for Pedro Almodovár's Labyrinth of Passion

A female nymphomaniac pop star falls in love with a gay, Middle-Eastern prince.

 

Labyrinth of Passion is written by Terry Lennox (Hungry for You (1996)) and Spanish master filmmaker, co-writer/director Pedro Almodóvar (Folle... Folle... Fólleme Tim! (1978)), whose 3rd feature it is.

It was made at the height of the Movida Madrileña period in Spanish film, near its end: A period of artistic wildness, experiments in sexuality and drugs, frivolity and hedonism coming after Spanish dictator Franco's death in 1975 and before the fatal arrival of AIDS in the 1980s.
The one-line plot outline above is just the main narrative center of the film, which is also about a dry cleaner's daughter, who is raped by her delusional father every other day; a gay terrorist who falls in love with the prince he is supposed to assassinate; a psychotherapist who is mad to make love to an old gynecologist, who loathes sex, until he has sex with his daughter. And a porn star. And a punk band. ...
It sounds chaotic and wild, and it is, and yet somehow it doesn't feel nearly as wild as it sounds. Some of that comes from the fact that all the incest and sex talk in Labyrinth carries no weight or importance with it whatsoever. The way it handles incest is shallow, (some will say offensive), if we need to be honest, and we need to since incest is such a serious issue.
It is all made in a sort of liberated craze, where none of the actions of the characters bear much weight; perhaps because Almodovár here swears to the super-light screwball comedy format, and still wants to throw heavy topics into his film.
In any case, Labyrinth of Passion is not a very good film. It among Almodovár's weakest films that I have seen, and it looks like a bunch of experiments and film-schooling in direction and storytelling that obviously paid off, because Almodovár became so incredibly good at it just a little later on, (his Law of Desire (1987), for instance, is a fantastic film.)
The fun basic idea that the script here reportedly came out of was that Madrid should be seen as the world's most important city; 'a city everyone came to, and where anything could happen.' This locally championing optimism carries some on into the finished film, but Almodovár has also admitted about the film himself: "I like the film even if it could have been better made. The main problem is that the story of the two leads is much less interesting than the stories of all the secondary characters. But precisely because there are so many secondary characters, there's a lot in the film I like."
While Labyrinth of Passion is not funny or smart enough to be a good film, and narratively is something of a jumble, it does feature Antonio Banderas (Law of Desire (1987)) in his second film, (the first, Pestañas Postizas (1982), premiered 8 days before Labyrinth of Passion), among many other Spanish actors, of whom none, however, can be said to really stick out and distinguish themselves in this film. Banderas plays the gay terrorist, who becomes infatuated with the prince he is supposed to help assassinate. With his heightened sense of smell, he tries to find the prince again in Madrid. Banderas is certainly one of the film's mollifying elements.

 

Related posts:

Pedro Almodóvar: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess  

Pain and Glory/Dolor y Gloria (2019) - Almodóvar's 8½ 

I'm So Excited!/Los Amantes Pasajeros (2013) - Almodóvar flees with unfavorable comedy 
The Skin I Live In/La Piel que Habito (2011) or, Almodóvar's Extreme Make-Over
Broken Embraces/Los Abrazos Rotos (2009) or, Mysteries in Love and Life

Talk to Her/Hable con Ella (2002) - Almodóvar's beautiful coma love drama 
Live Flesh/Carne Trémula (1997) or, A Spanish Fix

The Flower of My Secret/La Flor de Mi Secreto (1995) - Paredes star turn in charming Almodóvar work 

High Heels/Tacones Lejanos (1991) - Superficially worthwhile Almodóvar crime melodrama 
Labyrinth of Passion/Laberinto de Pasiones (1982) - Sexual mix-ups in screwball Madrileña style 

 

Watch a clip for the film here

Cost: 21 mil. ESP, approximately 161k $
Box office: 98.6 mil. ESP, approximately 755k $ (Spain only)
= Big hit (returned 4.69 times its cost)

[Labyrinth of Passion premiered 25 September (San Sebastián Film Festivail) and runs 100 minutes. The budget, though small, was more than 3 times that of Almodóvar's preceding film, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls on the Heap/Pepi, Luci, Bom y Otras Chicas del Montón (1980). Shooting took place in Spain, including in Madrid, co-financed by local cinema chain Alphaville. One of Alphaville's Madrid cinemas kept screening the film at midnight for a decade. The film played solely in Spain until several years later, when it started spreading to more markets, as Almodóvar's star grew. Almodóvar returned with Dark Habits/Entre Tinieblas (1983). Cecilia Roth (El Angel (2018)) returned in Octubre, 12 (1982, short) and theatrically in Best Seller (1982); Imanol Arias (De Sable et de Feu (2019)) in La Colmena (1982); and Banderas in Y del Seguro... Líbranos Señor! (1983). Labyrinth of Passion is fresh at 92 % with a 7.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Labyrinth of Passion?