Direction: Ben Sharrock
Country: UK
Limbo is a beautiful comedy drama. Bitter and tender by turns, it tells the story of Syrian refugee and oud player Omar Youssef (Amir El-Masry), who gets indefinitely stranded on a remote island in Scotland, patiently waiting for his application for asylum to be approved. Meanwhile, and because he is not allowed to work, he deals with anxiety and guilt not just for having borrowed money from his parents but also for having left Syria without saying goodbye to his brother, Nabil (Kais Nashif), who chose to fight.
Unmotivated to play his instrument, Omar enters in a fragile emotional state that, on the one hand, is aggravated by the xenophobic observations of some locals, and, on the other, is attenuated by his Afghan friend, Farhad (Vikash Bhai), one of the few who remain optimistic and encouraging.
British writer/director Ben Sharrock borrows some humorous traits from Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki (immediately detectable in the first scene), who is the European summit in the thorny issue of immigration (Le Havre, 2011; The Other Side of Hope, 2017). Still, he infuses his own vision by giving a refreshing take on the topic and molding the film to become poignant but unsentimental, with an urgent humanist side.
As an affecting and intimate declaration of faith in human values, the picture works its way quietly and steadily into our emotions. Every line and frame have something of interest and it’s nearly impossible not to care for these characters as we witness their pain, compassion and hope. Limbo is difficult to forget.
