Limbo (1999)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

John Sayles

Writer (WGA):

John Sayles (written by)

Release Date:

4 June 1999 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

A condition of unknowable outcome

Plot:

Unconventional narrative about the interactions amongst a group of people in a small town in Alaska, each of whom has guards a secret.

Plot Keywords:

Alaska | Singer | Island | Ambiguous Ending | Fishing

Awards:

2 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio	...	Donna De Angelo
David Strathairn	...	'Jumpin' Joe Gastineau
Vanessa Martinez	...	Noelle De Angelo
Hermínio Ramos	...	Ricky
Kris Kristofferson	...	'Smilin' Jack Johannson
Dawn McInturff	...	Audrey
Casey Siemaszko	...	Bobby Gastineau
Kathryn Grody	...	Frankie
Tom Biss	...	Baines
Rita Taggart	...	Lou
Leo Burmester	...	Harmon King
Michael Laskin	...	Albright
Jimmy MacDonell	...	Randy Mason
Mérit Carlson-van Dort	...	Stacy
Monica Brandner	...	Corky

MPAA:

Rated R for language.

Runtime:

126 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:L | Iceland:LH (video rating) | Singapore:PG | USA:R (certificate #36465) | South Korea:12 | Australia:M | France:U | Germany:12 | New Zealand:M | Spain:T | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | Argentina:16 | Finland:S

Filming Locations:

DIPAC Salmon Hatchery - 2697 Channel Drive, Juneau, Alaska, USA

Company:

Green/Renzi

Quotes:

Albright: What are you buying when you get on a roller coaster? Not risk... but the illusion of risk. Being hurled to the edge of danger but knowing that you'll never have to cross it. Now Mr. Disney's innovation was to put these carnival rides and attractions into a story context where you can imagine yourself as a character in one of his cartoon epics floating through a plaster of paris jungle. The obvious next step...

Soundtrack:

Attack of the Mutant Guitars

Masterful Cinematic Theater

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?