What if I told you that a film existed that comingled the fluid, melancholy precision of Tarkovsky's Solaris with David Lynch's penchant for the obscure and the bewildered? Only Lovers Left Alive Director Jim Jarmusch's puzzling espionage and ecstasy thriller, Limits of Control (2009), is that outlandish concoction. There's a scene early on in this picture that is straight out of the 1972 science fiction epic, where Isaach De BankolĂ© can be seen driving through the tunnels of Madrid (accompanied by the bold, steady rock-rhythm attached below) - a dazzling re-creation (although its unclear if this is intentional, either way its a brilliant homage) of the scene in Tarkovsky's Magnum Opus where Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) drives through eerily similar structures in Moscow. The film then uses more binary Lynchian tropes where gonzo surrealism is utilized simply to underscore tension, not to provide a narrative fulcrum. It's an insane, borderline personality disorder synthesis but the film contains so much calculated hubris and possesses such a strong supporting cast (Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Bill Murray, Paz de la Huerta, Gael GarcĂa Bernal, and Hiam Abbass), we glide through the proceedings effortlessly. It doesn't hurt that the appropriately atmospheric score and soundtrack are spellbinding; before Jarmusch hooked up with Jozef van Wissem (the duo known as Squrl), his Bad Rabbit quartet provided the film's slick, symphonic undercurrent.
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