“Limbo” (2020).
“It’s a good job God made dreaming for free”.
“It’s a good job God made dreaming for free”.
Occasionally, just very occasionally, there will be a film you’ll start watching believing from the very first opening frames that you’ll love and appreciate it. Without any trailers, spoilers or reviews I just knew Limbo would appeal to my sensibilities and, without overly labouring its point, it appealed to my sense of societal injustice as well as raising more than its fair share of smiles along the way. However, the tale told is grim, prescient, a shining light on the catalogue of Imperialist wars of conquest in this century alone and crucially, shining an even brighter light on the human casualties of war fleeing their own homes for a meaningless, desolate purgatory, or a limbo of waiting and hoping.
Waiting and hoping.
Against this is an often amusing tale that really warms up as the film hits its stride and if you like sardonic, slightly off kilter, deadpan ironic comedy, this could very well be the film for you.
The briefest of premises would be thus: Four men (out of a larger group of twenty or so refugees) are thrown together in the same house as well as the same unnamed Scottish island as they await news of their individual applications for asylum to be approved, or otherwise. The four men in particular are all from different parts of a war torn world and with very different religious and cultural norms and backgrounds. However, they share a common bond in that they’re housed within a dingy, unappealing and decrepit house on a bleak, cold, empty and remote area of largely nothingness. Their existence is as far away as possible from their lives pre-war and their collective wait is filled with the vacuous emptiness of a Friends boxset, a singular employer, a singular community centre, a singular tourist attraction and a single telephone box as their only real means of communicating with an outside world that has now largely forgotten them.
In amongst the peeling wallpaper of a barren, inhospitable house, the brilliantly comedic and cringeworthy cultural awareness classes and the island’s hilarious single tourist attraction are six main characters that the film cleverly pitches in pairs. Setting the tone for the film from its earliest frames is the pairing of “Boris” (Kenneth Collard) and “Helga” (Sidse Babett Knudsen) two island volunteers who run the cultural integration classes and commence the film with a shocking and jarring introduction to the off kilter film that follows, all against the backdrop of the Hot Chocolate song “It Started With a Kiss”. The next pairing are brothers that aren’t really brothers but their bickering and sniping at each other ratchets up the growing tension and the boredom of waiting and watching each day pass, their dreams ebbing away into the cold unfamiliarity of an island that time has forgotten. “Abedi” (Kwabena Ansah) and “Wasef” (Ola Orebiyi) are from Nigeria and Ghana and played the asylum system in desperation by pretending to be brothers. Their bickering is a dry comedic relief as well as highlighting the desperation of all four men to be free to resume a normal life or, for Wasef in particular, to follow his dream of playing for English Premier League team Chelsea. Dreams are a central theme of the film as well as another strand that binds the final pairing of the film and your star performers:
The Farhad character is the film’s heartbeat, it’s awkwardly sunny disposition, and a naïve innocence all brilliantly realised by the performance from Vikash Bhai. Farhad is from Afghanistan, smokes incessantly and has perhaps the smallest and simplest dreams of the four main characters. He simply wants the recognition of asylum (which they all do) but once granted, he just wants to integrate himself in the unnamed mainland (presumably Scotland) and wear a shirt and tie to work every day. He’s Zoroastrian, “like my hero Freddie Mercury” and his innocent appreciation of life is a beautiful through line for the film. Omar meanwhile escaped his war torn homeland of Syria hoping for London but ended up on a remote Scottish island with nothing but the video memories on his mobile phone and his grandfather’s Oud. Despite a broken hand, he carries his precious pear shaped instrument in a “coffin for your soul” according his newest friend, and would be “Agent and Manager” Farhad, as Omar shyly admits to being somewhat of a talented musician. But Omar doesn’t dream of playing his Oud. Omar just dreams of returning home and Amir El-Masry’s dead eyes of melancholia are pitch perfect in a brilliant performance.
In association with the BFI (British Film Institute), Film 4 and Creative Scotland, Ben Sharrock has directed and pieced together a highly impressive film in just his second feature length outing in the directors chair. It’s bleak with a capital B but the emptiness is often juxtaposed against the warmest of scenes. The wide angle shots of the single telephone box, the hilarious and hideously funny island tourist attraction or the grimness of nothingness as far as the eye can see can be pun intended seen against the hilarity inside the island’s only supermarket, or especially the cabin scene later in the film with accompanying Northern Lights. The comedy is bone dry, but the comedic standouts are brilliantly epitomised by the partnership of Boris and Helga as well as Omar and Farhad, the highlight being their slowly building joint rendition of the Freddie Mercury classic “The Great Pretender”. Together with these admirable traits are a collection of human emotions set against the very reasons for their current existence. For without war, Abedi, Wasef, Farhad and Omar wouldn’t be stranded on an inhospitable island guarding against casual racism whilst they wait displaced, dislocated, unwanted and with their dreams fast disappearing.
I knew I’d like Limbo. Blackly comedic and a shining light in the darkness on another human casualty of senseless bloody wars.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 100 blog articles (with 300+ individual film reviews) within my archives from which to choose:
“Dune” (2021)
“This is only the beginning”medium.com
“Gold” (2022)
Dystopian Mad Max survival thriller without the thrills.medium.com
“The Seventh Day” (2021)
Training Day — For Priests!medium.com