Spartan and wind-whipped and 25 miles from the already far-flung mainland of northern Scotland, the Uist Islands would be a disorienting place for most outsiders to find themselves stranded for an indefinite amount of time — and that’s without the additional, time-stretching uncertainty of a pending application for political asylum.
For the Syrian protagonist of “Limbo,” a refugee stationed in a bleak safe house on the island while he awaits the mercy of the British government, it amounts to a kind of physical and spiritual quarantine that could resonate with a broader swath of viewers than it would have done six months ago.
Which isn’t to say Scottish director Ben Sharrock’s thoughtful, gentle-natured sophomore film, which dramatizes the refugees’ plight through deadpan comedy rather than issue-movie hand-wringing, lacks ample empathy of its own.Premiering in Toronto’s Discovery strand, “Limbo” was to have been in the nixed Cannes official
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