The Silent Treatment: Isaach de Bankole on 'Limits of Control'

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DIRECTOR JIM JARMUSCH had only the vaguest notion of a film in mind when he asked his friend Isaach de Bankole to play the lead. There was no script, barely even a treatment, just a bundle of themes and ideas with little connective tissue. It was, says the actor, an experience both thrilling and nerve-wracking.

"It was a great pleasure, an act of trust and confidence," says de Bankole, "but at the same time it was a weight on my shoulders."

The result of that collaboration is "The Limits of Control," Jarmusch's 10th feature and his fourth with de Bankole, who was born in Ivory Coast and worked in Paris before moving to the United States.

The pair previously worked together on "Night on Earth" in 1991, "Ghost Dog" in 1999, and "Coffee & Cigarettes" in 2003, although many viewers may recognize him from "24" and "Casino Royale."

As a character known only as the Lone Man, he plays opposite a large cast of fellow Jarmusch veterans (Bill Murray from "Broken Flowers," Youki Kudoh from "Mystery Train") and newcomers to Jarmusch-land (Gael Garcia Bernal, Paz de la Huerta).

Beautifully shot to capture the colors and character of different regions of Spain, "The Limits of Control" ranks as one of Jarmusch's most well-observed and thought-provoking films, a heady meditation on the powers of imagination.

The story follows the Lone Man as he travels across Spain, encountering one character after another who expound on music, film and science while giving him new, coded directives that drive him and the story forward.

Silent and unreadable, the Lone Man remains in complete control of himself, heading routine and self-discipline even when faced with a naked woman in his bed or a mesmerizing flamenco dance that's one of the most strangely moving sequences in the movie — and possibly in Jarmusch's career.

"This guy is almost like those people going to Wall Street or people who are placing and executing orders," says de Bankole. "To me, the Lone Man's work is just to execute whatever orders are commissioned. He doesn't have to put his emotion into the job. He just has to get it done properly."

The setting is crucial: Spain, says de Bankole, is "really inspiring, with the same excitement I found in Paris in the '80s."

The movie makes its way from urban Madrid to Seville and finally into the Spanish countryside, and at every stop, he says, "I found that they were open and energized about art and knowledge, and everything was really booming."

Jarmusch wrote the part of the Lone Man especially for de Bankole, even incorporating some of the actor's personal traits into the character. That constant order of two espressos, separate cups? That's his own order, and he is just about as insistent about it as the Lone Man, who, in a rare loss of control, explodes at a waiter who brings him a double.

"I love coffee like some people love wine," De Bankole explains. "When you do a double espresso, the first half of the water makes the espresso stronger, the second half is weaker. You don't have the same quantity of caffeine in a double as in two singles. That became a mark of the Lone Man."

Another mark of the Lone Man — and one that proved slightly more challenging than sipping espressos in scenic Spanish cafes — was the character's almost entirely silent, stoic demeanor. De Bankole has played major non-speaking characters onstage before, but here he also drew from firsthand experience, specifically the time he pretended to commit suicide and decided to stop talking — all over a girl.

Although he spends the film listening rather than speaking, his tacit turn doesn't mean the character or the actor is not engaged.

"Mentally, you have to know the partner's dialogue," de Bankole explains, "because, to me, there's really no monologue when two persons are together. I do believe that by only his presence, the one who doesn't talk can shift the dialogue of the one who talks — just by his reactions and non-reactions."

With its quiet main character and unhurried plot, "The Limits of Control" demands post-viewing discussion and — at least for de Bankole, who saw the movie for the first time only a week before its opening — repeated screenings to catch all the eccentric details and graceful photography.

"I want to see this movie again and again," he says. "It's really a very rich meal, and I still haven't finished digesting it yet."

» Opens Fri., area theaters.

Written by Express contributor Stephen M. Deusner
Photos courtesy Focus Features