JARMUSCH SHOOTING IN SPAIN WITH ISAACH DE BANKOLÉ AND GAËL GARCIA BERNAL
[Photo by Teresa Isasi-Isasmend, NYTimes].

The limits of cool

This time Jarmusch has made a thriller-cum- fairy tale whose suave hitman hero slays a gangster dragon with the string of an historic guitar. A succession of short scenes, enigmatic steps toward the goal, evokes many worlds of cinema from Cocteau to Orson Welles, with a finale out of David Lynch, but it's all Jarmusch, the style as consistent, sui generis and alive as ever. And he's working at the top of his game. This is a brilliant, virtuosic piece of Jarmuschism, the best thing he's done since Dead Man.

The heading above is not snide but admiring. To stretch to cool's outer reaches yet stay within them is an fine feat. Jarmusch came to fruition in the New York hipster world and remains true to it. This movie really is so hip it makes your teeth hurt. But it's a good hurt.

Jarmusch has reveled in comic dialogue, right up to his last, Broken Flowers. But this movie having a stony-faced and enigmatic hero who speaks in monosyllables, the director's attention has shifted to the visual. Like Woody, he's also moved to the photogenic Old World, setting the action in Spain. For images that sing, he's sensibly hired the great cinematographer Christopher Doyle to man the camera. Limits is a feast for the eye. Where the director's first films were in black and white, this time the message hinges on subtle and lovely shifts in tint.

The title refers to the finale, where a gangland boss (Bill Murray), who might as easily be a Bush era Neocon, finds his periphery penetrated. "How the f--- did you get in here?" the man demands. And protag Isaach De Bankolé replies, "I used my imagination."

Control that's pushed but never lost is embodied in the tight-lipped hitman (Bankolé), billed in the script as "Lone Man." His mission is a mystery, maybe even to him. He moves in a sphere of stoical nihilism, and his rituals are strict. It's as if Jarmusch had finessed Beckett, reincarnating the tramp in a form that's fit and elegant and moves through a revolving series of momentary sidekicks. They're recognizable actors who arrive in character, perform the ritual as guides, then spin off riffs that link with one another. In the end Lone Man finds his Godot: he kills the king. His sense of order spins outward from the body. Periodically, even in an airport toilet stall in the opening scene, he shapes the air with razor-sharp gestures in his own brand of highly symmetrical, angular Tai Chi. His frame is all tight triangles sheathed in well-cut silk suits, one in a new color for each new locale. Madrid gets shiny blue and Seville dull tan.

De Bankolé's recurring Sphinx-like visage orders every successive scene. He's a samurai, like Ghost Dog or Delon in Melville's film. He doesn't sleep, lying awake through the night, and never eats -- except bits of paper and a slice of pear, and refuses sex saying "not when I'm working." He doesn't shed the suit appropriate to each locale till his train approaches the next. He always has his two espressos served to him in two separate cups.

He doesn't smoke or drink alcohol -- or talk to any strangers (as he sits sipping his espressos) who don't begin with the code question, "Usted no habla español, verdad?" ("You don't speak Spanish, right?"). He answers no; then two little matchboxes are exchanged. Once one has diamonds in it for a naked woman (Paz de la Huerta) but usually they have a piece of paper with something written on it for him, letters and numbers Lone Man reads and then swallows, washed down with the coffee.

Mixed in with their chitchat the folks with the new matchboxes deliver philosophical messages, e.g., "The man who thinks he knows the world will be taken to the cemetary and then he'll learn what the truth is." This comes in various languages, including literary Arabic. Another refrain: "La vida no vale nada," "Life is worth nothing," which is painted like a slogan on the Mexican ex-con's tow truck (Gaël Garcia Bernal).

Another truck driver is Hiam Abass, who could be driving Isaach De Bankolé across Israeli territory, or to the outskirts of hell.

What's it all mean? Jarmusch's movies are stylish shaggy-dog put-ons, but also hilarious and magical, sometimes (often in Dead Man) both at once. Here the rage for order vies with a rage for beauty. Doyle's photography makes a train's red doors glorious. He films a rambling Seville flat to evoke Wong Kar Wai's Buenos Aires. Lone Man visits the Reina Sofía museum of contemporary art in Madrid -- each time to admire a single painting (a very good idea; too bad so few follow it), seeking in vain the secrets of the universe. For diversion, there are the people with the matchboxes. A Brit (John Hurt) complains about bohemians. A dame (Tilda Swinton) in blonde wig and raincoat (like Brigitte Lin in Chungking Express) refers to Orson Welles' Lady from Shanghai and says she likes it when people just sit in movies and don't talk.

Despite the rage for order, everything is unexpected. Swinton, with her transparent parasol, reappears in a movie poster -- and an old one. Paz de la Huerta turns up repeatedly, naked, except for glasses and a pistol, in Lone Man's flat. If Lone Man knows where his road leads, we don't. The flat's front door opens and closes with a satisfying thud and click. Like the cinematography, the sound design (by Drew Kunin) is important and masterful this time. "Conceptual Japanese noise-rock" by the group Boris surges throughout the movie like Neil Young's in Dead Man, creating a special environment and intensifying the action, and Jarmusch has confessed music is a major inspiration for his films. An intense dialogue with Christopher Doyle was an important new element in the creative process. Ultimately this film is quintessentially cinematic, a tight blend of story, image, and sound.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.