The nameless protagonist in “The Limits of Control” is a man of many rituals but few words. Traveling through Spain, the Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé) practices Tai Chi in sheen, tailored suits, wearing the same outfit for days, even while sleeping. At cafés and on trains, he never fails to order two espressos in separate cups. From the start, it’s clear he’s on a mission, but what that mission entails is entirely unknown to us. The only clues come from the characters the Lone Man meets on his journey. From a Spanish violinist to a naked woman with a gun, each character gives him a hint and a small box of matches with a cryptic note tucked inside.

Each person the Lone Man finds also serves a greater purpose for the film’s director, Jim Jarmusch. The co-conspirators lecture the Lone Man about music, art and science, all the while elucidating the director’s philosophy as a filmmaker and artist. When the Blonde (Tilda Swinton) joins the Lone Man at a Madrid café, she asks him if he likes movies. He says nothing, as usual, but she proceeds to confess her love for Alfred Hitchcock and films where “people just sit there, not saying anything.”

Like many of Jarmusch’s films, “The Limits of Control” often feels like a movie where people sit together in weighty silence. Beyond defending his cinematic style, Jarmusch invokes Hitchcock to justify the Lone Man’s enigmatic quest. In Hitchcock’s suspense films, the action often hinges on an obscure object (or some other element) that drives the characters. What the object or element truly is matters far less than the drama or suspense it elicits. Near the end of “The Limits of Control,” we witness the Lone Man complete his mission without ever grasping the significance of his actions.

Other than the lush sightseeing around Spain, at the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid and the Torre del Oro in Sevilla, “The Limits of Control” doesn’t stray far from the format of a feature-length series of vignettes like “Coffee and Cigarettes.” If the overarching plot is really of little consequence, as Jarmusch seems to suggest, then many of the scenes in “The Limits of Control” could stand on their own as short films. What ultimately unites these would-be vignettes into a feature film is not much more than a careful visual aesthetic and the constant presence of the Lone Man.