Limbo

Once again, as do all John Sayles films, this is no Hollywood fare. There are no easy answers or solutions to the questions raised or problems illustrated. John Sayles gives his insightful subtle approaches to another aspect of life and living, of ordinary people tackling everyday encounters and challenges. Nothing spectacular (yet it is quietly spectacular). It's another multi-character study, and Sayles is very good at telling the story and providing the different premises and details in a seemingly casual manner. Sayles fans know it will not be a boring journey - life lessons will be assimilated.

In LIMBO, photography is skillfully delivered by veteran cinematographer Haskell Wexler (the unforgettable "Medium Cool" 1969, which he also wrote and directed; "The Thomas Crown Affair" 1968 with director Norman Jewison; two with Sayles: "Matewan" 1987, "The Secret of Roan Inish" 1994). Here, graphic detail shots are included on fishing, informing us of the intricacies involved - it's Sayles ingredients to the core.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, as always, a tour de force. She gets to demonstrate what a wonderful singer she can be. She did a terrific job - she sings so well that it sounds like Judy Collins at times! David Strathairn, for once, is not in a supporting role. He is in the male lead role and as expected, a quiet sensitive delivery of his character as a fisherman incognito. There is mother and daughter tension at play here. Vanessa Martinez played the teenage daughter and what a superb performance - hers is no easy role. The segment by the campfire where she reads from a diary book, her subtle expressions and poignant portrayal complete this triangle of complex emotional cauldron a-brewing…yet she held her own in capturing our attention on her touching delivery.

This is not an easy film to consume - it provides mind probing and requires reflective thinking. A John Sayles fan MUST-SEE, or anyone who's ready for a different movie and a change of pace.

Music is by Mason Daring. As usual, the film is written, directed, and edited by John Sayles himself.

I don't know all of Sayles work, but I plan to. This film really impressed me.

What I look for is a few things, that if done well will really satisfy. Among them are:

--daring use of the cinematic medium

--transporting me to a conceptual space that I otherwise wouldn't have experienced

--self reference

CINEMATIC: Sayles is a storyteller, who thoroughly understands what it means to build a narrative scaffold using film. This is theater completely recast for the unique strengths of film, and only possible when the same person writes, directs and edits. This camera is literally introduced as a character when noelle offers it an `hoordoov.' The camera participates, the lights participate. We have overlapping dialog, overlapping cuts, multiple views of the same scene. We have long panning multithreaded scenes. We have a dramatic pacing which starts slow, sets a lot of potential threads and convincingly fools you into relying on certain expectations.

Then narrative commitments are made before you are ready, and then come faster and more unexpectedly until the very gutsy end. Sayles knows in real storytelling, there's a game between teller and listener, each trying to outwit the other. A masterful storyteller teases but plays by the rules, allowing the reader to take risks. It takes craft to do this in the written word, and is extremely rare using the more intimate but external and slippery experience of cinema.

TRANSPORTING: Alaskan wilderness as theme park where stories are safely refined for casual visitors. That would be enough given this level of craft. But Sayles takes us into Noelle's diary world. That's the center of this film's world, the world of the mystical Shefox. Deep imagery here -- superficially referenced in the `real' action. I do not expect to ever forget that visit. The self-reference is in both.

Much has been made of the actors, and I think that a mistake since the creative force here is clearly Sayles. But this girl Martinez has some magic. Who will write parts for her?

After seeing this movie on DVD, I found that I admired Sayles as a director, actress Mastrantonio as a talented singer, and David Straithern as an actor. Earlier I was only familiar with the above-average work of Mastrantonio but here she is remarkable. It is indeed sad that such interesting and well-made movies never fetch an Oscar, if not major Oscars. It is indeed "Ox-bow incident" revisited.

Every aspect of the film is well crafted and rivetting for any intelligent viewer.

The DVD commentary is a great one for movie enthusiasts.

With its leisurely pace, unusual structure, and highly ambiguous ending (not to mention a nonexistent marketing campaign), Limbo will quite likely divide the small audience that sees it. This is a terrible shame, as John Sayles is at the top of his game. Set in Alaska, Limbo comments incisively on a variety of complex issues concerning the vast state -- the relentless tourism, the scarcity of meaningful employment for the working class, and the careless abuses of irreplaceable natural resources by the wealthy, to name a few. All of these interesting themes, however, are discarded half-way through in favor of a thought-provoking story of human survival that will undoubtedly light a fire for some while irritating and alienating others. Sayles has not always connected with me, but I was deeply moved by Limbo (especially the rich characterizations provided by Martinez, Mastrantonio, and Sayles regular Strathairn) -- and I absolutely loved the gutsy ending, which continues to occupy my thoughts.

Hi, my name is Slim and I just saw a movie about how just when you think life is going good and you got all the major stuff like food, money, and love dialed in and it's just about time you got comfortable with a six-pack of some cold longnecks WHAM! that cold-ass harlot Bad Luck cold cocks you one. Then the next thing you know you're stuck on some wet, dank, isolated-on-the-buttwipe-end Alaskan island with this gal you were just getting to know real well, not to mention her teenage daughter who's into self-mutilation and strange stories, and to top it all off some drug running nimrods who just got burned are looking for all your butts with their superduper peekaboo scoped rifle.

I'm talking about Limbo, made by the one of best directors who doesn't give a damn about Hollywood and does it his way all the time-John Sayles, and has one of my favorite babe actress-Mary Elizabeth Maistrantonio. It all takes place somewhere way up in Alaska where men are fisherman, women are fish cleaners, and the tourists are stupid fat Midwesterners. My babe Mary is this singer who just left her 51st, or 63rd, or 102nd guy and goes right after her 52nd or 64th or whatever, who is this guy who used to be a fisherman but due to 'unforeseen circumstances' isn't one now. But since way up there in fish country winters are long and women are scarce and fish just don't last all winter he decides she is all right, and besides she is Mary Elizabeth Maistrantonio. Anyway, he and she and the teenage daughter decide to go for a boat ride, so off they go along with his long-lost half-brother who decides to pull a con on his half-bro and use him as a bodyguard for some stupid pigheaded easy money drug deal. But of course it ain't easy money, and so it's a man overboard and everyone swim for their life scene.

We got fish being cleaned, fish being shot, fish being canned, fish being fish, we got pretty postcard pictures of somewheres up in Alaska which looks like they got enough trees to build all of us a 5000 square foot house, we got losers in a bar with their own barstool, we got Robinson Crusoe only Friday is a babe and her daughter, and finally we got an ending that just goes to show that we don't really know what's going to happen in our lives.

Three and a half bright north stars. Go check it out but only if you want to watch a movie where when it's over you want to go back for more. Or else drop kick a size 12 metal toed boot to the rear of Sayles for ending the movie the way he did.