MicroCinema Scene

Limbo is an impressive microcinema feature film from writer/director Thomas Ikimi.  Made for $9,000 and shot in black and white digital video, the film has the muscle where it counts most, in the story.  Along with the script, the acting, music and direction are all top notch.

Limbo is a very intriguing story about Adam, a lawyer played by Chris Russo, who’s up against mob influences.  Adam has a rough history, but has since cleaned up his act and is actively involved in his church and volunteer work.  Through a series of events, Adam is killed and immediately finds himself in a state of limbo.  The theological theory behind limbo is that it is a place somewhere between heaven and hell and Ikimi could have used that premise to devise just about any story plot.  His choice is both simple and inventive.  Like an onion, the more you peel away the surface, more is revealed.

In Ikimi’s Limbo, Adam finds himself repeating the same hour over and over again.  However, this is not like Groundhog Day, where Adam returns to the same point in time… instead, every hour Adam is the only one who does not return back to where they were.  For Adam, life around him has become a continuous loop.  In this scenario, you cannot build friendships, as everyone resets after one hour.  Your options become very limited.  After hundreds or thousands of these loop cycles, one could struggle with one’s own sanity.  Even more disturbing in this scenario, one could do whatever one wants to anyone they want without consequence because, within an hour, everything is reset.

At first you hope that if Adam unravels the mystery of how he ended up in Limbo that it might somehow offer him an escape, yet you then understand that there may never be a way out.  You realize that, in Limbo, you can do anything, yet accomplish nothing… forever.

This use of Limbo in this film was very thought-provoking and I found myself thinking about the story long after the film had ended.

The acting is all of high quality.  Russo, as Adam, portrays the multiple levels of the character with complete success.  The two sides of his personality, his evil past and his moral present, are tested and retested throughout his limbo state and Russo is able to convincingly offer us both sides to great effect.  Eric Christie is solid as Vaugh James, a gambler addict with whom Adam interacts.  Etya Dudko and Joe Holt play two others stuck in this limbo state, each dealing with it in their own way.  Especially effective is Holt, whose slightly unstable character, Lasloe the Great, gives you an uncomfortable sense of one of the paths Adam may take.

I should also give a nod to Andrew Daniels for an excellent score.  It is amazing how much the soundtrack establishes mood and leads our emotional journey through a film.  Daniels’ score is perfectly designed and utilized as we travel through the many twists and turns that unfold before us in Limbo.

The strength of Ikimi’s Limbo was on the page before any tape was shot.  It is his strong screenplay that propels our interest in the film and his effective directing brings that story to life.  Limbo is an interesting and memorable microcinema film.

Four Stars.

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