Review of The Limits of Control (2009) by Darrin N — 30 Jul 2009

So glad that Jarmusch's elegant riddle turned up at the New Beverly this week, as I had missed it during its initial run, and it turned out to be the most satisfying movie I've seen so far this year.

It's like a spy thriller told with the Tarot, a game made of symbols, laid out in a world where everything is encoded; moral codes, behavioral codes, literal codes define all interaction, making language redundant and even a little quaint.

However you want to read it - and for me, it works as a quietly unfurled middle finger in the air to the dominance of empirical thinking - it is so playfully obscurantist, providing so many neat little details of design, color, characterization, setting, that the whole of Jarmusch's actual intent becomes secondary to his film's ability to absorb whatever meaning you might project onto it.