As Australian cinema has stayed relatively out of the spotlight at the Midnight Sun Film Festival, we have not – until now – screened any films by the country’s possibly most emblematic auteur Ivan Sen. His “perhaps best” (according to Aussie critic David Stratton) film Limbo is a good place to start. As a feature-length film director, Sen is indeed quite exceptional, even worldwide: in addition to writing and directing, he also takes charge of filming, editing, and musical composition! Among other things…
As an Australian Aboriginal himself, Sen depicts Aboriginal life in his films. In the thriller-esque, hypnotically meditative detective story Limbo, Caucasian detective Travis Hurley (Simon Baker) investigates the 20-year-old unsolved murder of an Aboriginal woman. In the process, the detective bears witness to many of the kinds of injustice experienced by Aboriginals. The victim’s brother Charlie refuses to speak to white people, but his sister, Emma, will. Lies and abuse are uncovered, and shadows point to the late main suspect’s peculiar brother.
The arid landscapes of the outback mining town Limbo appear like the lunar surface in Sen’s expressive black-and-white cinemascope depiction. Aussie actor Baker, who has made a name for himself in Hollywood and has been named one of the “most beautiful people in the world” multiple times, is anything but as the worn-down Travis, who, due to car problems, is forced to stay at a motel in Limbo and attempt to reconcile differences between Aboriginals and whites and wrestle with issues of structural racism.
Timo Malmi