We need more Scottish film makers with Ben Sharrock's patience for dialogue that is carried as much by the silences as by what the protagonists actually end up saying, with his endurance when it comes to depicting over-romanticised landscape as void and inhospitable enough for it to reveal itself in moments of depth.
The obligatory reverence towards Danny Boyle's Trainspotting remains obscure enough for it to develop its own creative moments. In the beginning, the protagonists, four asylum seekers from Syria, Ghana, Nigeria and Afghanistan, find themselves cast in the middle of an Outer Hebridean plain in quite the same way as Renton and his friends turn up outside Corrour station in front of a lifeless autumnal grey Highland vista. And reminisces of Renton and friends shine through again in the cocky Island youths as they have their first encounter with Omar, the lead character.
Limbo is memorable in many ways but particularly perceptive in its depiction of the context of ethnic minorities in Scotland. Scotland, and the Highlands and Islands region in particular, is ethnically highly homogenous. Less than 5% of the Scottish population describe themselves as non-white. In the Highlands and Islands, it is less than 2%, a bit more than 3000 residents. If you are brown, or black, or of African, or Asian, or Indian or Arab heritage you really stand out. This is tempered by the friendly welcome characteristic of Scottish culture, and by the open-door policy towards migrants, which seeks to counter balance the threat of depopulation that looms large across the Highaldns and Islands. Limbo gets the resulting tensions about right, adn that alone makes it worth watching.
The obligatory reverence towards Danny Boyle's Trainspotting remains obscure enough for it to develop its own creative moments. In the beginning, the protagonists, four asylum seekers from Syria, Ghana, Nigeria and Afghanistan, find themselves cast in the middle of an Outer Hebridean plain in quite the same way as Renton and his friends turn up outside Corrour station in front of a lifeless autumnal grey Highland vista. And reminisces of Renton and friends shine through again in the cocky Island youths as they have their first encounter with Omar, the lead character.
Limbo is memorable in many ways but particularly perceptive in its depiction of the context of ethnic minorities in Scotland. Scotland, and the Highlands and Islands region in particular, is ethnically highly homogenous. Less than 5% of the Scottish population describe themselves as non-white. In the Highlands and Islands, it is less than 2%, a bit more than 3000 residents. If you are brown, or black, or of African, or Asian, or Indian or Arab heritage you really stand out. This is tempered by the friendly welcome characteristic of Scottish culture, and by the open-door policy towards migrants, which seeks to counter balance the threat of depopulation that looms large across the Highaldns and Islands. Limbo gets the resulting tensions about right, adn that alone makes it worth watching.