Old wine in new bottles, Limbo is a case – a jeroboam? – of the familiar served up in a starkly different way. A desert noir, an Outback noir more specifically, it’s the latest from Ivan Sen, whose Mystery Road about ten years ago opened up this territory.
Now he exploits it, with a savage, scorched-earth aesthetic, in a story about a troubled cop – wrecked marriage, bit of a drug problem – rocking up in a remote Outback town to open the books on the unsolved murder of a local aborigine girl, though the nearest you get to the word “aborigine” in this film is “black fella”.
Mystery Road had more or less the same plot but came at it with an aborigine cop leading the chase. This time it’s “white fella” Travis Hurley, a cop sent to “review” the 20-year-old cold case and finding a town that doesn’t want to talk to him. The missing-presumed-dead girl’s trailer-dwelling brother tells him in no uncertain terms to “fuck off”. Her sister is more polite but the sentiment is the same. Behind it the sense that “white fellas” don’t do “black fellas” any favours so why bother making any effort.
And yet. In a display of policing that matches this barren environment, Hurley goes about his business, quietly asking questions, in scenes where he just appears to stand there not saying very much, waiting patiently for an answer, quite polite, in a gruff way. And once his own car is vandalised by local kids, and he’s forced into renting the only old banger still working – an ancient Dodge – Hurley more obviously transforms into the many American detectives who have also gone about police business more with a salty charm than the heavy approach, a Jim Rockford, if that means anything to you.
Limbo is set in the town of Limbo, though filmed in Coober Pedy, an old mining town in South Australia. It is a blasted landscape full of spoil heaps and craters. From many angles it looks like the moon. Sen emphasises its harshness, shooting in an extremely high-key black and white – as noirs goes, this must be one of the brightest – and making the most of the locations. There is an exotic beauty here.
Hurley’s hotel appears to have been chiselled out of the rocks, so is presumably part of an old mine system. Presume away, no one is going to tell you.
Simon Baker plays Hurley, shorn of the blond locks he wore when he was starring in The Mentalist a few years ago, more blokeish, more Ocker, but still charming, in a dog-eared sort of way. It’s a minimalist performance that matches the visuals and the soundscape, which tweaks ambient sounds for its atmospherics, rather than relying on mood music too much.
Rob Collins plays “fuck off” brother Charlie, Natasha Wanganeen – last seen by me in Rabbit-Proof Fence 20 years ago – is sister Emma, and together they are the humanising element in a story that does need this seasoning.
Who dun it? I’m not sure Hurley ever properly finds out, but that isn’t really the idea. There is a Shane-style intention here – moody stranger rides into town and eventually rides out again, having en route become something of a father figure, leaving behind some things changed but most things much the same.
The family figures in several ways – as a counterweight to the white authorities if you’re a “black fella”. As a refuge from justice if you’re white. Who dun it? It might have been Leon, a miner long dead, or his brother Joseph. Leon and his reputation for liking “young black girls”. Joseph, not long for this world, and his need to apologise to Emma for something or other.
Sen wrote and directed, produced and edited, wrote the music and did the visual effects and casting too. He’s good at all those things. He’s also good at soft-pedalling certain themes – the racism, for instance – it’s a black and white world, for sure, but that’s just the way it is around these parts.
Limbo – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
