As fierce a figure as has ever appeared on a movie screen, Isaach De Bankole dominates "The Limits of Control," speaking so little as to make Clint Eastwood seem like a babbler in his spaghetti Westerns. It’s a strange movie written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, with Christopher Doyle’s cinematography a glorious palate, stark in its contrasts, rich in its colors. De Bankole, in his fourth Jarmusch film, is a native of the Ivory Coast, trained in Paris, his face as expressionless and unmoving as an Easter Island statue. He’s a very strange cat, as he sits in sun-drenched Madrid courtyards, always ordering two espressos in two cups, an obvious visual cue for someone. In city after city, in courtyard after courtyard, someone approaches and says, "You don’t speak Spanish, do you?" A few words may be spoken before he and the visitor exchange small matchboxes of different colors. De Bankole takes a piece of paper from the box, looks at it, swallows it, gets up and walks off.
He does a lot of walking. He speaks hardly at all.
Obviously he’s a man on a mission, receiving instructions from the matchbox swappers and moving to the next station, or city, wearing suits that are handsome and fit perfectly. He meets Tilda Swinton and John Hurt along the way, but neither says much or does much. The same is true for Bill Murray, who appears late and briefly.
Jarmusch seems wrapped up in some sort of conspiracy theory, wheels within wheels, circles within circles, all leading somewhere, but the silent character of De Bankole dominates the film. Jarmusch builds tension beautifully. De Bankole executes perfectly.
At the Tivoli.
-Joe