Limbo

A small island in the north of Scotland. A few men awaiting asylum decisions are held there; they may not work, they have nowhere to go, and all they do is wait. Omar is a Syrian musician; he brought his oud and does not play it. Cultural orientation classes are given on the island and they are absurd. Omar talks to his family from the phone box; his father asks why he still is not playing. Ben Sharrock writes and directs. Amir El-Masry plays Omar. The form sits on the comic side. The frames are symmetrical and fixed, the humour is dry, and the characters stand small inside the landscape; the choice builds the state of waiting visually. The subject is not refugeehood but suspension. The man can neither go back nor move on and time does not pass; the title says it directly. The oud is the object at the centre. Omar's having stopped playing is not a question of ability but of not knowing for whom or for what, and the narrative carries that to the end. It was shot in the islands off the west of Scotland; empty roads, bus stops and wind are its visual material. Sharrock had worked previously on the asylum system and drew the screenplay from that experience. Who it is for: viewers who like dry European comedy and treatments of refugee experience outside the usual shape. Who it is not for: almost nothing happens, the pace is very slow, and the humour sits badly against the subject for some.