Film review: ‘LIMBO’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’

In its odd but often very moving mix of refugee drama, quirky culture clash comedy, story of crushed hope and depiction of music as a source of salvation, Limbo at times recalls the lauded 2007 cross-cultural comedy-drama The Band’s Visit.  Like that film, Limbo sees a group of people displaced from their homeland trying to cope with an unusual and at times unwelcoming environment.  Here, it’s a group of asylum seekers deposited in sparse accommodation on a freezing, windswept fictional Scottish island.

The story focuses on the taciturn Omar (Amir El-Masry) a Syrian refugee and musician of some renown who spends most of his time traipsing the grim landscape lugging a traditional stringed instrument called an oud which was passed down to him from his grandfather.  Denied the right to work and subsisting on a meagre allowance, life is pretty dour for Omar and the other asylum seekers as they desperately wait for official acknowledgement of their refugee status.  While this predicament is soul crushing enough, Omar has to contend with his parents – who have fled to Turkey – comparing him unfavourably to his brother who stayed to fight in the Syrian war.  With an injured hand, he’s also unable to reconnect with the music that forms a large part of his identity and Syrian cultural heritage.

Amir El-Masry has limited dialogue as Omar but through his disconsolate facial expressions and sagging posture, potently conveys his growing bitterness, resentment and loss of hope.   As his circumstances on the island and via the crackly phone calls with his family deteriorate, we feel he’s about to explode.

The film could have become a wallow in misery but writer/ director Ben Sharrock deftly punctuates the drama with oddball comic moments usually courtesy of the well-meaning but awkward locals such as English teachers Helga (Sidse Babbett Knudsen) and Boris (Kenneth Collard). There’s also an amusing but ultimately poignant turn from Omar’s friend and self-appointed manager, Afghani refugee Farhad (Vikash Bhai) who worships Freddy Mercury, obsessively watches Friends and dreams of a regular western life working in an office.  Some of the quirkier moments in this film – which occasionally rely on caricatures – jar a little with the refugees’ desperate situation but they mostly capture the absurdity of the world in which they find themselves.

Despite occasionally using some obvious CGI, Ben Sharrock conjures an imposing landscape on this fictional island with some vast desolate rocky vistas and at one point a stunning display of the Northern Lights.

Perhaps deliberately, Limbo is a little repetitive but its most effective moments capture the stress and despondency of people in what seems like a hopeless situation not of their making as well as some exultant moments of joy.

Nick’s rating: ***1/2.

Genre: Drama/ comedy.

Classification: M.

Director(s): Ben Sharrock.

Release date: 13th Jan 2022.

Running time: 103 mins.

Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm right here on 88.3 Southern FM.  Nick can also be heard on “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly Film Show” podcast. http://subcultureentertainment.com/2014/02/the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-film-show

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