In Theaters

A man sits in an airport lounge, listening passively as a couple of gangster-looking types obliquely lecture him about a mission he's about to depart on. It's a one-way street, they talk in circles and he listens, apparently taking it all down. The Lone Man (as he's termed by the press notes, no name deemed necessary) has a statuesque, impassive face whose powerful planes are accented by the crisp accents of the camera. It's a face that one has to get used to. Because for a healthy stretch of Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control, that face will be just about all there is for company. No voice, no story. Just the face of a Lone Man on an inscrutable mission, which is to be executed with the studied diligence of a elderly tortoise and the lean aggressiveness of a wolf who's lost his pack and needs none to replace it...

The Limits of Control opens (somewhat) today. You can read the full review at Film Journal International.