The first sequence of "The American," like much of the rest of the movie, contains scarcely any dialogue. The scene unfolds in the snowy emptiness of Sweden, where Jack (George Clooney) is hiking with Ingrid (Irina Bjorklund), a woman whose history with Jack isn't revealed.

A sniper's bullet tears through the frozen air and, in mere minutes, the audience must puzzle out any number of critical questions. Who is Jack (whose real name might be Edward)? Why is someone trying to kill him? Why does he react as he does, particularly how he leaves his girlfriend?

Most movies from the big U.S. studios would doubtlessly provide responses in short order, but "The American" is content to leave many things — including a clearer explanation of what unfolds in the film's opening frames — left unsaid and unanswered. Very loosely adapted from British author Martin Booth's obscure 1991 novel "A Very Private Gentleman," director Anton Corbijn's film, which opened Wednesday, is a cinematic anomaly: a U.S. production that in look, pacing and casting is more European than Clooney's own Italian villa.

"I'm sure a lot of people will think it's on the slow side of things," says Corbijn, whose previous film, "Control" (2007), was a critically acclaimed but little seen fictionalized biography of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of the British post-punk band Joy Division who committed suicide in 1980. "But I think there is too much explaining in films sometimes. Yes, there's not a lot of back story on George's character. But it's enough for me to follow the metamorphosis that he is trying to achieve."

As in the book, Jack is an accomplished and precise craftsman, but what he is meticulously creating in the workshop isn't a handmade violin or a ship in a bottle: They're high-powered weapons used for assassinations. Jack wastes little energy worrying about the principles of his calling: It's his job, he's good at it and he takes as much pride in his handiwork as a gourmet chef might show for a faultless beef Wellington. And in Booth's novel, Jack actually believes he's providing something of a public service, a critical cog in the gears of history.

Like almost anyone with an illicit past, Jack must constantly watch the shadows, and as Corbijn's film begins, Jack is looking to get out — with one last automatic rifle to build for a female shooter named Mathilde (Thekla Reuten). He heads to a medieval Italian town in Abruzzo to escape his pursuers and build his final gun, and while there he meets Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) and the prostitute Clara (Violante Placido), who independently conspire to reveal a bit of Jack's hidden soul.

Rather than pack pages of expositional dialogue into the script, Corbijn, who is best known as a photographer, relied on long, lingering shots of Jack and the Italian countryside.

"We were trying to make a film that had a lot of beauty in it," he says.

Grant Heslov, Clooney's producing partner and a producer of "The American," says: "George and I had both seen 'Control' and were huge fans of the film. That's a huge part of the puzzle when George is considering working with a director. Even though 'Control' is a very different kind of story, it's beautiful. But it's hauntingly beautiful. It's not commercially beautiful."