Limbo

Directed by Ben Sharrock, Limbo follows Amir El-Masry’s Omar as he and several other figures await letters approval of their respective attempts at claiming refugee status within Scotland’s borders. It’s clear immediately that Sharrock, working from his own screenplay, is looking to cultivate an atmosphere of deadpan weirdness, as Limbo opens with an oddball (yet thoroughly entertaining) sequence in which the various asylum seekers are forced to endure a cultural-awareness lesson by a pair of local eccentrics – with the movie, beyond that point, seguing into a deliberate, comedically-tinged midsection focused on the protagonists’ low-key exploits (eg one fellow robs a chicken from a nearby farm, another engages in an argument over Ross and Rachel’s breakup in Friends, etc, etc). The somewhat uneventful atmosphere is, at least initially, not nearly as problematic as one might’ve assumed, as Sharrock does an effective job of peppering the proceedings with compelling interludes and, along with cinematographer Nick Cooke, an admittedly eye-catching visual sensibility – although it’s equally apparent that Limbo‘s overly meandering second half ensures that the whole thing peters out to a fairly lamentable degree. (This is despite the inclusion of a fairly electrifying closing few minutes.) The end result is an erratic but generally rewarding little movie that benefits from El-Masry’s compelling work as the conflicted protagonist, with Limbo painting an evocative picture of what the refugee experience must be like within certain territories.

**1/2 out of ****