Limbo

This movie starts like a typical great John Sayles movie. It is about people in Alaska struggling to get through their day-to-day lives, some with dignity, some not so much. They are all interesting and they all have their secrets and their stories. Like any small town, everyone knows everyone else's problems.

The second half of the movie is about circumstances that leave Joe Gastineau, his new girlfriend, and her daughter stranded on a remote island and their struggle to survive. I had trouble believing any of the action in the second half. It starts going wrong when Joe brings the girls on his brother's boat without asking his brother if that was OK. Then his brother does not object even though he knows it is going to be dangerous. Later, the bad guys track down the boat, even though the boat is not where it is supposed to be due to a storm. The bad guys are able to silently sneak up on and board the boat. Joe and friends are able to swim away from and escape from the bad guys even though the bad guys have a motor boat and guns. They struggle to survive on the remote island, but they always seem too clean, dry, shaved, and well fed. The movie then has a cop-out ending, although I could not think of a better ending, given the incredible action that preceded it.

The second half of the movie did not feel like a John Sayles movie. It was like someone else wrote it.

This movie has some great performances. David Strathairn is a troubled, but good hearted handy-man. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is wonderful as a singer who is just barely keeping her life in order and raising a daughter. She portrays someone who is cheerful and optimistic and at the same time someone who is weary and can see only more problems in the future. She is getting older and has given up ever becoming a famous singer. It is an interesting, appealing character.

Don't Believe the Type (...below). John Sayles' Limbo is a slow-burning, stonker of a movie! The character interaction and dialogue are sublime and subtle. Personally I love to see David Strathairn in the lead role, and it is to Sayles' credit that he has, and continues to give this deft actor a chance to shine. For those who have complained about the 'boring storyline' and 'dissapointing finale' I feel sorry, really very sorry - Sorry, that you could not enjoy the films' depth and intelligence as I did. And if you didn't like the ending, then well, you just don't get it, do you?

Tops marks Mr. Sayles, One of your Best!!

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?

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.