Limbo

Detective Travis Hurley arrives in a small town in the Australian outback. The Hotel Limbo, which resembles a rocky grotto, proves to be perfect for his very own particular type of relaxation. But he has come here to investigate a case from 20 years ago for which the only evidence is a number of tape recordings: the unsolved murder of an Aboriginal girl named Charlotte Hayes. The residents are less than forthcoming regarding the provision of information; this is especially true of the victim’s fractured family. You do not talk to a cop, especially if he is white. But Hurley, in a stoic performance by Simon Baker, knows how to wend his way in his cool car through the labyrinthine landscape of the Opal Mountains and form a bond with the cave and caravan dwellers.
Indigenous Australian film director Ivan Sen is renowned for his depiction of magnificent screen landscapes. In Limbo, he juxtaposes the low sky with the mounds above and holes below ground around the opal-mining capital of Coober Pedy. The result is a serene “desert noir” that is as convincing as a detective story as it is a subtle portrait of the First Nation’s deep-seated experiences of everyday racism. A genre film suffused with bleak nostalgia.