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?

Enter the Void (2009) - Noé's Tokyo-set, visually magical bad trip

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A trippy, psychedelic poster for Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void

The first part of Enter the Void is seen through the eyes of protagonist drug dealer Lucas', as he takes drugs SPOILER and gets shot dead in the toilet of a Tokyo nightclub. The rest of the film consists of a lot of memories that relate the story of Lucas and his little sister Linda's lives, which is violently tragic, and since of the drifting around of Lucas' consciousness or soul in the Japanese mega-city, while the rest of his environment falls apart.

Enter the Void is the 3rd movie from Argentinian master co-writer-director Gaspar Noé (Irreversible (2002)), co-writen with Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Innocence (2004)) and shot by cinematographer Benoît Debie (Get the Gringo/How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2012)).
With Enter the Void, Noé comes across visually as something of a super-human wizard, and so much the worse, more anxiety-provoking and traumatizing is the experience of watching this in every sense extreme film. Enter the Void is terrible to watch and completely unforgettable at once, - it feels like a very long journey on a very bad trip.

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 12.38 mil. €, equal to approximately 13.23 mil. $

Box office: Reportedly 1.4 mil. $

= Box office disaster

[Enter the Void premiered May 22 (Cannes, in an unfinished cut) and runs 143 minutes in its international version and 161 minutes in its extended version. Noé had developed the narrative since watching Lady in the Lake (1947), also shot from the a person's perspective, as a youth, high on mushrooms. He had tried to make it for almost a decade, but it was too expensive and risky for anyone to be willing to fund it, - until Irreversible turned out a hit. Noé has since called Irreversible, his masterpiece, a 'bank robbery' and a helpful exercise for him in order to make Enter the Void. Paz de la Huerta (Boardwalk Empire (2010-11)) is the only one of the main actors who was already a professional actor. The visualization of the film was much dependent on Noé's own experiences taking hallucinogenic drugs. Financing proved possible as a co-production of no less than 13 companies and governmental support funds. Filming took place from October - December 2007 in Tokyo, with additional shoots in Montreal in April - May 2008. Very little of the film's dialog was reportedly scripted. The producers made agreements with the Yakuza (Japanese mob) for its Japanese shoot. Complex crane shots, helicopter shooting and shooting in huge sets of the city made at Toho Studios were accomplished, and every shot in the film uses CGI. - Post production lasted over a year. Noé has explained about the film: "The whole movie is a dream of someone who read The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and heard about it before being shot by a gun. It's not the story of someone who dies, flies and is reincarnated, it's the story of someone who is stoned when he gets shot and who has an intonation of his own dream." Since the Cannes premiere, where the film was shown in competition but lost to Michael Haneke's great The White Ribbon/Das Weiße Band - Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009), the film continued to be refined and alter in following screenings. Noé himself says that the material that isn't in the short version of the film isn't essential; he had to make the shorter version due to a finance contract over length. In North America, the film opened #52 in 3 theaters to a 43k $ first weekend, later widening to 13 theaters and grossing 336k $ (24 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 137k $ (9.8 %) and France with 134k $ (9.6 %). One of the producers blamed the financial crisis for the film's poor performance. Enter the Void is fresh at 70 % with a 6.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Enter the Void?