Ben Sharrock’s sophomore feature, Limbo, offers a refreshing new angle to the cinematic niche of refugee and immigration stories through deadpan humour and zaniness that has elevated it to acclaim, proving to be quite a favourite on the festival circuit ahead of its debut at the Glasgow Film Festival.
Asylum seekers have to endure a tedious, often unpredictable process with the decisions often left in “limbo” for a long time. For Omar (Amir El-Masry), a Syrian refugee who fled his country when conflict arose to seek stability and security in London, he’s stuck on a fictional Scottish island with Abedi (Kwabena Ansah), Wasef (Ola Orebiyi), and Farad (Vikash Bhai) as they all wait to find out whether they can stay or not. They’re shacked up in a tiny hostel in the middle of nowhere, forbidden from doing any legal work, and enrolled in classes that teach them how to fit into a caucasian society should their applications be processed.
Despite the subject matter, Sharrock finds a lot of wit in the story he has cultivated here. The opening sequence sees the refugees being hilariously educated in the ways of Scottish dance in one of their aforementioned classes – presented with the dos and donts of such a scenario. There’s also an extended sequence in which two characters bicker about the infamous “we were on a break” argument from Friends – enjoying the show on a small CRT television in their tiny living space. Sharrock’s wit is certainly unexpected, with a comic sensibility akin to Yorgos Lanthimos or Blackadder, but it’s a welcoming touch that brings a lot of levity to what is otherwise a very real, very bleak real-world situation for so many people.
That being said, Limbo still has a lot of depth and understanding for its characters despite the quirk on offer. And it carves out such real people that find humour in the every day as a means of keeping themselves afloat; these men believe they’re being slowly eroded by a long, arduous system trying to wait them out until they give up and return home on their own accord. The film does take a while to find its tonal stride – the humour and melancholy not always a seamless pair – but, when it does, it’s an investing exploration of immigration not as a broad-stroke process but as an intimate struggle for someone trying to find their identity in a world they feel they don’t fit into. El-Masry anchors it all with a sublime, understated turn and his commitment to Sharrock’s strange tone makes for a rumination far from the conventional. Just when you think Limbo is about to hit the clichés, it throws a curveball at us to remind us that it’s more nuanced than that.
Limbo
Summary
A refreshing new angle to the cinematic niche of refugee and immigration stories.
