The Over-exposed VS The Under-appreciated

Monday, March 15, 2010

The Limits of Control 3-10

One of the most exhausting and repetitive tasks of dealing with anything of artist merit is the discussion of artistic merit and what the definition of art is. People either pose the question out of personal curiosity, or they are most likely trying to make a point that there is no agreed upon definition of art. I'm already bored of talking about. So I submit to you, just like that guy on the twilight zone, the movie The Limits of Control. A movie that is essentially about nothing, which will have many asking if it is or isn't art, while trying to explore the more artistic side of the track, although I'm being generous with the word "explore."

The plot of the movie is that you don't know what is going on for two hours as a single character completes repetitive tasks and meets a number of colorful supporting character, with the only other character that shows up for more than a one minute long scene being a naked lady that just seems to be there until she becomes one of the repetitive tasks. She shows up towards the end of the movie again to show some more tits before the movie comes to a conclusion and you realize that it definitely wasn't worth it.

Naked and glasses is as interesting as this movie will get.

If that sounds interesting to you, then be my guest and watch the movie, but if it doesn't,  allow me to ruin the 2 hours of nothing happening you would have to watch and just tell you the point of the movie. As the main character goes all over Spain he does things like visit an art museum, watching bar gypsy's preform, and ordering two espressos in separate cups. He meets up with different people and listens to them talk about movies, music, bohemians, and how science is about molecules and whatnot. He trades match boxes with them, reads a note inside, eats it, and then moves to the next scene where he does the same thing. At one point he gets diamonds in a matchbox and gives it to the naked girl, and then he later gets an old guitar. He eventually makes his way out to the countryside where he finds a compound. The helicopter that he's been looking at the whole movie lands, and he uses his imagination to sneak inside.

Sitting at a table.

Here he confront Bill Murray, who is supposed to be some American figurehead of authority, who calls him a smelly hippy. He kills him with the E string from the old guitar and then goes back to looking at "art" in a museum, making the movie amount to being a revenge fantasy about the artsy farstys coming together to hire an assassin to kill "The Man." I'm sure the idea would be genius if it didn't seem like something I would have came up with when I was 13-years-old. The fact that there isn't a payoff at the end makes the rest of the movie, and all the time spent watching it, wasted.

More sitting at a table...

Though the movie itself is dumb, that doesn't really bother me. I see dumb movies all the time. The worst part about this movie is that I really like and respect Jim Jarmusch and his movies, but the terribleness of this movie makes me question if he actually deserves it. I hate to use the word pretentious, but if I ever did, now would be the most appropriate time to do so. This movie is so self important without having the slightest point or meaning that if makes me wonder how anyone, especially a filmmaker I much respect, would make it.

 The poster is seriously cool though, so I'll put it in twice

The thing that bothers me about the "what is art" question is that you'd have to be an idiot to put so much stock into something you haven't even defined. I mean for real, if you don't know what art is then why do you even care? Why go through the trouble of posing as an intellectual without a developed understanding of what you're even talking about? Is the allure of being a fancy pants artist really that strong that it draws the attention of every self-important idiot and causes them to put on a shallow facade that spits in the face of reason, or what the fuck?

I define art as expression, because when I listen to music, or watch movies, or read a story, I enjoy it when the music, movie, or story expresses something to me and I can feel what the creator was going for, and to me that is art. If something is just a bunch of bullshit put together to try and fool us into thinking there is some hidden meaning we arn't grasping "because we arn't cultured enough" to get it, it isn't art, its still just bullshit. Which is what this movie is. Bullshit.


3 out of 10 for too much sitting at tables...

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