Limbo

Limbo is partly filmed on the island of Uist, a wild patch of land off the coast of the Hebrides in Scotland. Although the island is very real, it is nonetheless a place of fiction, as is the situation of these castaways isolated on an improbable Alcatraz. Ben Sharrock uses the windswept setting as a symbol. The island represents the mental landscape of exhausted, disorientated travellers stranded in an administrative no man’s land on the doorstep of their destination. The beaches, villages and the absurd slide also become an irresistible springboard for visual gags. Because Sharrock has invented a slapstick comedy around the tragedy of his characters, an astonishing string of situations played out by some excellent actors. You will encounter the disturbing gaze of a Pakistani grocer who eats raw onions, an incongruous figure in an amphibian mask handing out leaflets for some party or other in the harbour, or a lady in an electric wheelchair on a road leading to infinity... In these elegantly crafted still shots, Ben Sharrock puts his stamp on a world that is so funny it makes you cry. (Adrien Gombeaud; Les Echos)�