Limbo: Impressive Simon Baker (review)

The hero of the Mentalist series, transformed, surprises and seduces in this ultra-stylized black and white thriller set in the Australian Aboriginal community, to be discovered on FilmoTV

Shaved head, iron-rimmed glasses at the end of his nose, tattoos on his arms. It takes a few seconds to recognize the actor who plays the central role of this thriller, discovered during the last Berlin festival. But it is indeed Simon Baker who plays this heroin addicted cop wandering like a lost soul in a small town in the Australian outback to investigate the unsolved murder, twenty years earlier, of a young aborigine. This metamorphosis could seem poseful, signifying in a rather heavy way a desire to reposition oneself, to change jobs and image after seven seasons of Mentalist which still sticks to him, eight years after the end of the series, for lack of significant roles since on the small and big screen.

But that would be an unfair and unjustified trial. Firstly because Baker plays his role without trying to impress the gallery at all costs. There is no trace of a spectacular scene here. A permanent interiority dominates his interpretation, matching the tone and rhythm of the film in its entirety. Limbo is one of those thrillers where the investigation itself counts more than its resolution (which is revealed to us very early on). Aborigine on his mother’s side, the Australian Ivan Sen (whose previous feature films are unpublished in French cinemas), signs through this investigation a hollow portrait of this Aboriginal community, crushed by years of ostracism and racism, with scars that do not heal over time. And he does it through a captivating visual form, a thousand miles from any realism, dominated by an ultra-worked black and white, translating the devitalized side of the daily life of these Aborigines whose voices, sufferings and recriminations no one listens to, except for this cop, just as outside the world as they are. And again, like Baker’s interpretation, there is nothing artificial about this form. She follows the rhythm of a story dominated by an assumed languor, a way of dragging out shots, of leaving room for silence, translating the singular rhythm with which her central character experiences these situations. This bias will inevitably leave some behind and there is no doubt that the big screen would have been more appropriate to discover a film of this formal ambition. But even on a TV or computer screen, the journey proposed by Ivan Sen is worth the detour.

By Ivan Sen. With Simon Baker, Rob Collins, Natasha Wanganeen… Duration: 1h48. Available on Filmo TV