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Attempting to be amusing in the midst of the migrant crisis is a dangerous game of Russian roulette. However, with his sophomore feature “Limbo,” a humanistic, tenderly deadpan plunge into the psyche of a Syrian refugee, Scottish writer/director Ben Sharrock avoids potential pitfalls such as a patronizing tone and cultural insensitivity with deftness, delivering something insightful, genuine, and universally relatable that will appeal to audiences everywhere.
Because of its defiant stance against exploitative hopelessness, Sharrock’s story feels almost like a small miracle within the world of movies that unfold around the international refugee crisis—a long catalog of features and non-fiction films that have recently liberally and perhaps unavoidably lean into physical and psychological suffering. It’s not that “Limbo” ignores or dismisses the despair and spiritual hurt that its displaced human beings, who are stranded on a remote Scottish island while awaiting a decision on their asylum claims, endure on a day-to-day basis. It simply responds to the suffering of its characters in a different way than you might expect. To uncover the many absurdities of misplacement, Sharrock employs a fresh narrative angle that maintains a tight and modest focus on alienation, a thematic resolve supported by thoughtful visual compositions that prioritize negative space and isolation, as well as great perceptiveness. When you watch “Limbo,” you’ll get a well-earned sense of hazy sadness that is specific to its desolate setting and the people who live there.
The main character, Omar, is played by a terrific, misty-tempered Amir El-Masry, who exudes the kind of melancholy that Sharrock is looking for like it’s a second skin on his sleeve. Originally from Syria, Omar is a gifted musician who is particularly adept with the strings of an oud. He spends his days in a state of transition, just like the rest of the refugees stationed at the strange, cut-off seaside outpost. Afraid of playing the oud and hampered by a mysterious hand injury, the young man nevertheless carries his grandfather’s oud around with him as if it were an extension of his own body. His family is scattered across the globe—his parents live in Istanbul, and his brother is still fighting in Syria as a resistance fighter. When he is not visiting the town’s sole phone booth to call home, Omar spends his time hanging out with his similarly dislocated companions and staring into space with a twinge of nostalgia. “Limbo” is structured around Omar’s moving conversations with his mother, which Sharrock disperses throughout the piece like cadences in a musical arrangement. On one occasion, we hear him asking for the recipe for his favorite native dish, which includes spices such as sumac, which are nearly impossible to come by on the island. On the other hand, their shared concerns about the future of their family take over the long-distance conversation.
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Sharrock constructs a complex portrayal of Omar through a series of sweetly observant scenes that both elevates him above his austere circumstances and seamlessly integrates him into them with a distinctive care and delicacy. As a result, Andy Drummond’s meticulous production design and Nick Cooke’s astute cinematography accentuate the barrenness of Omar’s surroundings, which include the sparsely furnished temporary apartment he shares with his Freddy Mercury fan roommate Farhad (a gentle and amiable Vikash Bhai), the sparsely stocked grocery store he patronizes, and the bleak landscape that surrounds it all… The combination of these elements serves as constant reminders of Omar’s emptiness, thereby increasing the severity of his emotional estrangement.
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One of Sharrock’s most impressive achievements is that he manages to use all of these absurdist flourishes to achieve a sensitive, reflective sense of humor (think something along the lines of “The Band’s Visit,” but directed by Yorgos Lanthimos) without making Omar and his friends the punchline of the joke. As an alternative, Sharrock believes that the joke is on the people of “Limbo,” who are blissfully ignorant of the advantages they have over others. This is especially true of two cultural integration teachers, Helga (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and Boris (Kenneth Collard), who have been assigned to teach a couple of dozen young men like Omar about Western societal etiquette. A ridiculous scenario set on an imaginary dance floor is used to demonstrate sexual boundaries in one session (which serves as the film’s hilarious opening). In another, they demonstrate the proper way to conduct a phone interview for a job application. You can’t help but notice how the men play along, sometimes with jaw-dropping earnestness, but you can also hear their inner voices mocking the clueless but well-meaning Helga and Boris from the sidelines.
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Aside from the main characters, there are several other characters who provide amusing contrasts to the seriousness of the story. The Nigerian brothers Abedi (Kwabena Ansah) and Wasef (Ola Orebiyi), for example, are endearing in their disagreements about the future (one wants to be a footballer, while the other has more modest ambitions) with as much fervor as they fight about the latest episode of “Friends” that they’ (Did Ross and Rachel end their relationship, or are they taking a break?) As Sharrock builds his quartet of characters, he gradually establishes a lovely dynamic among them, transforming Abedi and Wasef into fully realized characters, while adorning the delightful Farhad with even more endearing characteristics, such as his selflessness in wanting to assist Omar with his music career as his agent and manager. To be honest, Sharrock’s story ends a little abruptly and with only a few minor twists. This lapse in time, however, does not diminish the time you will have spent with his lovable dreamers on a barren yet paradoxically beautiful landscape that has been frozen in time, and which is just as distant and forgotten as its transitory inhabitants.
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