No doubt many journalists will give it glowing reviews just to disguise the fact that they didn’t understand it, for fear of looking uneducated, uncultured or missing the intellectual beats. Fact is, the film is a pretentious mess; two hours of the stoned art school student let loose with the failed painter turned lecturer’s philosophy of “if it makes no sense then everyone will believe it’s genius because we are above anything mainstream”.
Which means it will appeal to anyone who believes a pile of bricks on the Tate gallery floor is also genius or conveys a message of importance.

This film was made without a script, no storyboarding, no shot list — and it shows. It is the only time in a cinema I have ever strained to stay awake. I only stayed the course hoping the pay off would be worthwhile. It is two hours of my life I’ll never get back.
It’s not that I didn’t understand this film. It’s not that clever.

The film is nothing but self indulgent art for arts sake. It is boring, unimaginative and in no way entertains. Jarmusch needs to take his head out of his anus and put it straight on the guillotine.

The fact that this film will see a limited release in art house cinemas and the like only reassures that people en masse will not be subjected to such a weak effort and that the ‘wannabe intellectuals’ can look down their reading glasses and compare notes about obscure references while the rest of humanity is blissfully oblivious to such cack, happily making hay in the bushes.

Some nice locations and good artistic cinematography do not a film make. The irony is, for all its pseudo intellectualism, this film suffers the same fate as the average big budget special effects Hollywood blockbuster — nice visuals, nice design, no story.

Highly unrecommended.
ADC

Reminds me of the juicy promise of Ghost Dog, squandered by Jarmusch’s total lack of genre fanboy restlessness. He doesn’t play around with genres so much as sleepily toy with them.

Matterfact, Roberto Benigni, John Lurie and Tom Waits are responsible for roughly 97% of my interest in this filmmaker. That was a loong time ago.

Like you said, the film is largely based on repetition - but not exact repetition, rather slight variations on a theme, both visually and verbally.
It struck me right from the beginning that the film is more like a piece of music than a film in the traditional sense.

The airport scene in the beginning both gives us all the lines in the film (except for the monologues) and starts to subtly vary them. The “Creole” gives his instructions (in Creole) and they are subtitled (in English) and translated (but not quite verbatim). We’re essentially given the same cryptic notions three times, but slightly varied.

As the film progresses through repeating the same meeting scenario over and over again, the lines are repeated in different languages, become part of a song, are written on the back of a truck. They’re like the theme or chorus line which gather meaning through the solos (monologues on art, film, drugs, etc.)

Visually, the same thing is happening. The same images are repeated again and again (Lone Traveler in cafes, on stairs, in a car; the espresso cups; the matchboxes; the tai-chi) from sightly different angles, forming a visual beat.

Jarmusch is like a minimalist composer who works with a self-imposed rigorous set of soundbites and visuals to develop his theme (in both musical and philosphical sense) gradually throughout the piece so that what seems random and sparse to begin with makes perfect sense by the time the Lone Traveler (or actually the camera) bows out.

Encore, Mr. Jarmusch!

Great review

Though I fully understand why the film is so divisive, it’s interesting that the negative reviews barely address the film, or show a willingness to engage it AT ALL. What I’ve been reading is a lot of “oh this movie sucks and makes me sick” or “only a hipster could like this film” hyperbole.

Yes, it’s an easy film to dismiss with a flippant cry of “vacuous!” but who does that benefit? Morgenstern’s 19 word ejaculation should rather read “I’m honestly far too lazy to think about this film, but check out my Wolverine review!”

You’re review has only served to intensify my anticipation for Limits of Control, so good on you.

And “Limits” roolz.

You say that like it’s a good thing. The reason this film is divisive isn’t because some of us can’t roll with the above; it’s because some of us find the above to be the downtown-cool equivalent of Free to Be…You and Me. (Look it up.)

Excellent review. It sounds as if Jarmusch might be contemplating giving up narative altogether. Creatively, where else can he go?

JB