by Arik Ben Treston

Limbo
Columbia/Tri-Star, 1999

The Castle
Distributor: Miramax, 1997/1999

Unless you become stranded on a small Alaskan Island with no food and a barely decent warm piece of clothing, there is no worse situation to be in than in a video store not knowing what to rent. That limbo is a feeling that can hardly be rivaled by anything out there. Well, maybe I am pushing things a bit here. Let’s just say that it can be a frustrating experience trying to make your way through the massive selections that clutters shelves to find that little-heard-of gem of a film. With all that said, you should think about disappearing into Limbo. Limbo is John Sayles newest story that happens to be in film form.

Sayles (Matewan, City of Hope, Secret of Roan Inish, Eight Men Out) is a director who has never worked within the Hollywood system. He has managed to be the sole proprietor of his art, without any form of interference. While the film is released with Columbia/Tri-Star attached to the poster it is merely for distribution purposes. Sayles makes what he wants to make. Whether his films are shot in another language (Men With Guns, Spanish) or whether they are bizarre, genre-bending fables (Brother From Another Planet), Sayles continues to go only where he wants to. This gives him the freedom to craft gentle little films that get the chance to explore characters and their relationships.

I’ve watched the trailer for Limbo a few times and noticed that, for the sake of people going out to see it, it is set up like some sort of stranded-in-the-wilderness movie. The Edge meets Deliverance meets Swiss Family Robinson meets Pokémon (sorry). The truth is, the film focuses on our main characters living in Juneau, Alaska for the first two acts, only treading upon the survival story in the final act.

Sayles regular, David Strathairn, stars as Joe Gastineau, an odd-job man who, years ago, used to be a commercial fisherman until "unforeseen circumstances" took him out of that game. Another game Joe was in was basketball. He had the chance to go to college on a full basketball scholarship until he blew out his knees in high school. These events have caused Joe to be older than he is, sadder than he should be and quieter than a mouse.

The life in Alaska isn’t painted as a party. Pulp mills close down, canneries go out of business, people guess who’ll be the first to commit suicide once deep winter settles in. Enter Noelle De Angelo (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), a singer from Washington State and her daughter Donna (Vanessa Martinez). Noelle (Mastrantonio, in top form, does all her own singing) has a contract to sing in the frozen north for a year. After dumping her boyfriend at a gig, she meets Joe and a slow, mature relationship develops.

Things don’t typically move too swiftly in a Sayles film, which can be refreshing. He sets the story up to slowly unfold like a complex flower over time. As the film progresses, more and more is revealed. While some may find that too slow, it can be a breath of fresh air in a market of bigger and faster fare that doesn’t let you scratch below the surface.

Once we get to know these three characters, we are allowed then to follow them into the next phase. Through circumstances that Joe couldn’t foresee, he involves Noelle and her daughter in something bad. Without time to think, they are thrust into being both stranded and hunted on a small, rarely visited island. With no preparation for what they have gotten into, they must come together to stay alive.

At this point, Sayles creates a second film that emerges from what we started to get to know in the first two acts. This can be a tricky cinematic tactic. Audiences generally don’t like to be told that what they started to like and get to know is no more and here is something completely different to take in. Somehow, carefully, Sayles makes this fly and we become involved with the characters enough to travel with them to this new frontier.

Much like David Mamet’s script for Ang Lee’s The Edge, the film focuses less on surviving in the wild without preparation and more on discovering one’s inner self and the demons from the past that continue to haunt us.

Casting wise, Sayles has always had a good eye for talent. In her first big role, Vanessa Martinez manages to hold her own with seasoned veterans Strathairn and Mastrantonio. Her role of a self-mutilating, desolate, and depressed teenager-always-on-the-move is imbued with true heart. It is a refreshing take on teen angst compared to the oh-so-troubled slick teens that we are accustomed to on shows like "Dawson’s Creek" and movies like Teaching Mrs. Tingle.

This is the kind of film that you want to watch in the same way you would read a good book. You want to just sit there and be taken in and you are. Sayles manages to keep it always a shade-off of what we normally see, which can be a nice break.

While writing about movies taking place in small towns, the recent video release of The Castle comes to mind. This is a disappointing attempt to achieve small-town quirkiness that have worked well for many comedies (The Full Monty, Waking Ned Devine) but can be overwhelming for others — like this one.

Set on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, or more precisely, on the outskirts of an airport, the movie centers around the Kerrigan family’s refusal to move. The airport wants to expand and it would be cheaper to buy up the few, run-down lots around the field than to fill in a nearby quarry. What the airport didn’t foresee is Darryl Kerrigan, (Michael Caton) a sweet family man who feels that his little house is more than just that, it’s his and his family’s home, their castle. The memories and experiences that have transpired in this little place are irreplaceable, and Kerrigan is determined that no big-time conglomerate corporation will take that from them.

The problem with the film (including an unnecessary, disruptive narration by the youngest son of the family) is that it is too self-aware about what it takes to become a ‘quirky’ film. Other Australian films have managed to do ‘quirky’ just fine (Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla Queen of the Desert) but this movie doesn’t reach their level. It is a good attempt but, ultimately, it falls under its own weight trying to become an inspiring and cute little film.

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