Limbo

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?

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.

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.

If you are a film student, or a John Sayles devotee, I recommend you buy or rent the DVD version. As compelling as the film was, the director/author's running commentary was equally fascinating. This movie sweeps you along at a leisurely pace, till you are not sure whether or not you are interested at all. When the plot twist begins, you will be swept under like a whirlpool. Four stars, two thumbs up. Better than Lone Star. And if you didn't like the ending, you didn't understand the movie. This isn't entertainment, this is art.

Having finally caught us with John Sayles' "Limbo", it must be said that the king of the indie scene can still surpass any genre.

Casting his friend (and movie veteran) David Strathairn as an Alaskan fisherman with an emotional crisis is one of the film's many pluses. Strathairn brings an everyman quality to every role he's in. The film is also not unlike Strathairn's own "The River Wild". At least, without the contrivances. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is also good as a bar singer (she sings pretty well too) hauling her teenage daughter (Vanessa Martinez, very good in her debut) through gig after gig. The film also has some thriller elements; but, this of course, is Sayles, who wisely pushes for character development and dialogue ladened with truth.

As he proved with EIGHT MEN OUT, MATEWAN, CITY OF HOPE, and PASSION FISH, Sayles is a truly gifted writer/director. Keep it coming.