Plot
The story of a mysterious loner, a stranger in the process of completing a criminal job.
Release Year: 2009
Rating: 6.1/10 (8,238 voted)
Critic's Score: 41/100
Director:
Jim Jarmusch
Stars: Isaach De Bankolé, Alex Descas, Jean-François Stévenin
Storyline A solitary man who does not speak Spanish is an underground courier. Two men who are both thuggish and philosophical send him to Madrid with cryptic instructions. Over the course of a few days, he receives his instructions from a series of distinctive individuals who provide words of philosophy or of warning and also give him a matchbox with a tiny piece of paper, which he reads then eats, accompanied by espresso served in two cups. He is quiet, self-contained, focused on his work. He has rules. He encounters and at times transmits a violin, diamonds, a guitar, and a map. Is he a smuggler? Merely an independent conduit? Or, something else?
Cast: Isaach De Bankolé
-
Lone Man
Alex Descas
-
Creole
Jean-François Stévenin
-
French
Óscar Jaenada
-
Waiter
Luis Tosar
-
Violin
Paz de la Huerta
-
Nude
Tilda Swinton
-
Blonde
Youki Kudoh
-
Molecules
John Hurt
-
Guitar
Gael García Bernal
-
Mexican
Hiam Abbass
-
Driver
Bill Murray
-
American
Héctor Colomé
-
Second American
María Isasi
-
Flamenco Club Waitress
Norma Yessenia Paladines
-
Flight Attendant
Taglines:
For every way in, there is another way out.
Opening Weekend: $55,820
(USA)
(3 May 2009)
(3 Screens)
Gross: $425,025
(USA)
(28 June 2009)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
When Tilda Swinton talks about a swooping bird in a room full of sand she is referring to a scene in the Andrey Tarkovskiy film
Stalker.
Goofs:
Crew or equipment visible:
When the Lone Man has passed the last picture in the museum during his first visit, the camera can be seen slightly reflected in the glass of the picture frame.
Quotes:
[first lines]
Creole:
[character speaks in Spanish/French creole, English subtitles]
You don't speak Spanish, right? French:
[character translates for Creole]
You don't speak Spanish, right? Creole:
You are ready? Everything's cool? French:
You are ready? Everything's cool? Lone Man:
Yes! Creole:
Good. French:
Good.
User Review
A Zen Masterpiece!
Rating: 9/10
Sit back, open your mind, watch the magical pictures genius
cinematographer Chris Doyle paints and let Jarmusch take you to a new
world. This movie is an instant classic, uncompromisingly inviting the
viewer to fill in the blanks while being enchanted and entertained.
When the lights came up at the end of the screening, I wanted it to go
on for hours more. Of course it can be hard work staying with such a
quiet, obscure plot, but anyone who walks into a Jarmusch expecting
Crank 2 is bound to be disappointed.
Comparisons with Dead Man are inescapable, but possibly have been
overemphasized... The Limits are a very different animal: Visually, the
potent use of color alone, sets it far apart (Theories on the use of
dark orange, anyone?) and -despite appearances- I think Limits is a far
darker vision. The repetition of the "La vida no vale nada"-poem is a
reminder of a deep angst and deliberate struggle with meaninglessness
at the heart of the story.
Isaach De Bankole's stunning features serve as an anchor throughout,
although I found his carefully one-note, almost robotic performance a
bit too much in some scenes. This would be my only real criticism. -The
fact that the Lone man takes himself so seriously had me longing for a
moment of humanity, self-deprecation or exhaustion every now and then,
just to keep the audience with him and stop his extreme of cool from
sliding off into seeming arch. He presents a superego without an id or
an ego- Romance or passion are foreign to him, physical needs don't go
beyond caffeine and tai-chi. He doesn't even sleep. Seemingly
representing the cinema-goer entering the film, the protagonist enters
the foreign world of Spain. Observing, receiving information, never
responding, never engaging- except to destroy a cell phone. (Nice hint,
Mr Jarmusch!) He is presented with philosophical ideas from every
person he meets, but never replies. Just like an audience can only
engage with any film it sees internally. The final act -and only real
action- of the film could be read as the conscious choice to not submit
to the controlling, disillusioned machine of "Hollywood cinema", but to
limit it's control and remain true to the potentially illusionary
values presented by his matchbox-giving guides. To deliberately choose
a subjective path less traveled by.
Every conversation -or rather monologue- is left hanging in the air and
begs to be continued in the viewers mind. Tilda Swinton, looking
futuristically sexy yet classical in her role as a sort of incarnation
of cinema, tears open the meta-reality especially far when she lightly
observes how much she likes people sitting silently in films. Followed
by a spell of the characters sitting silently on screen. Notably, she
is the only one who gives Lone Man more than just a note. Her matchbox
contains diamonds as well, as if Jarmusch wants to say: "Science,
music, sex etc all give me something, but film is where I am given the
most precious thing."
As his surroundings change from modernist Madrid, to Gothic Seville, to
the bare bones of the Andalusian desert it is as if the Lone Man is
traveling backwards in time, absorbing, with every encounter, one of
the trappings of an artistic/ bohemian life that stands in the against
the idea of societal control: Concepts of music, films, sex,
hallucinogens are each absorbed with the ingestion of the papers in the
matchboxes. His final encounter with the Bill Murray character erases
the personification of control itself, in the form of a
corporate/political caricature of the ultimate freudian father figure,
leaving the Lone Man at a point of rebirth as he finally takes off his
silk suit and fades into the embracing mass of humanity... His final
matchbox note is blank. -No more control. The poetic sensitivity,
originality and sheer ambitiousness of this movie make me want to get
down on my knees and thank Mr Jarmusch and Focus Features for making
it. We need more films like this!
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