Writer/Director Ivan Sen and Actor Simon Baker talk to Fest Track about context, approach, emotional intent and tone in regards to their new noir film: "Limbo" playing the Centrepiece section of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario [Canada].
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Short filmTranscript
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00:50 Because I like the fact that the irony is that they said,
00:52 we wish there was a fresh face there 20 years before.
00:55 I love the fact that you see that time,
00:58 because in every character, they're like,
01:01 that's what, obviously, limbo--
01:03 that's one meaning, of course.
01:04 But the idea that all these people-- you have such empathy
01:08 for these characters, even though they've maybe
01:10 done bad things, or they've had bad luck,
01:13 or all these things, you empathize,
01:15 and you don't judge them.
01:16 And that's a very interesting point for all these characters.
01:20 They do what they do because they have to,
01:22 or because that's their reaction.
01:25 At least that's my takeaway.
01:28 But Ivan, could you talk about that,
01:29 looking at these characters, as far as just allowing
01:32 them to be in many ways?
01:34 Or, I mean, obviously, there's different intent, but--
01:46 Yeah, I mean, the shades of gray are really important for me,
01:53 when creating characters.
01:56 And nothing's black and white.
01:58 And no one's the bad guy and the good guy.
02:01 I'm always interested in the good and the bad
02:03 within all of us.
02:05 And everyone's looking for the bad guy, and he's right here.
02:11 It's like how much can come out at a certain time.
02:16 So I think that's kind of inherent in all the characters
02:20 that I create.
02:21 And I think that's a truthful representation of us, too.
02:27 I mean, old Joseph, he's the keeper of the secrets.
02:31 But he's just this old guy who's just half gone crazy.
02:39 And his ethical compass is awoken, to some degree,
02:47 from this visit from Travis.
02:51 And the audience are just waiting for him
02:56 to find that good part and to come out.
03:00 And he just lets it out in very small droplets
03:06 throughout the story.
03:08 And yeah, and old Charlie, the family,
03:11 they're just trying to survive.
03:13 They're just-- they've been through a lot,
03:16 like a lot of Indigenous people in Australia.
03:18 But they actually just keep going.
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04:00 I mean, Simon, can you talk about Travis
04:11 almost in that way?
04:12 Because first, he's a cop.
04:15 He's also a father.
04:17 But then he's also just a human being.
04:19 And it's interesting.
04:21 You sort of play him with an interesting cadence,
04:23 because you can't be aggressive.
04:27 You can't be too passive.
04:28 But it's in those scenes, again, in the car,
04:30 as the car is a character, that you just
04:32 sort of see him sort of be.
04:34 And that's a hard thing sometimes to get on screen.
04:37 It's an instinct.
04:38 It's not necessarily something that you can act at times.
04:42 Maybe you can.
04:43 Can you talk about finding sort of that cadence in him?
04:46 Because it's how you dance with the other characters as well,
04:50 especially Emma.
04:50 Yeah.
04:51 Yeah, I don't know.
04:56 I don't know that it's that cerebral to me,
05:06 to be able to really articulate it.
05:08 It's kind of more of a feel thing.
05:10 I mean, because there's not a lot of exposition.
05:17 That's the great thing, is that there's enough exposition
05:19 that the audience can take some away.
05:22 But then you just sort of have to lay down into that,
05:26 I would think.
05:27 Well, I think there's this sort of element where
05:31 there's a task.
05:34 If you look at the Travis character,
05:36 it's like, take the character aspects of whatever's
05:39 going on with him personally.
05:41 He has a task to do.
05:43 He's got to go out there and examine this case to a point.
05:47 It's not his job to solve the case.
05:49 It's just to sort of review the case
05:52 to see if it's worth going further into it,
05:55 whether he's going to recommend, go back and recommend
05:58 that they should investigate further and have another look
06:02 or not.
06:03 It's not his job to find who did it, necessarily.
06:07 So he has an obligation to a sense, to a degree.
06:13 So there's a point A to point B, potentially, in the story.
06:18 So there's a drive to the story in that regard.
06:20 Charlie?
06:28 Charlie Rose?
06:30 Who are you?
06:31 Copper.
06:43 [HELICOPTER WHIRRING]
06:46 Travis Hurley.
06:51 What kind of name is that?
06:53 Can't know.
06:53 It's given.
06:54 How'd you find me?
06:59 I just asked the cops.
07:01 Seems to know a lot about you.
07:02 You hear about my warrants?
07:07 Not here for you.
07:09 Heard about your sister?
07:10 Yeah, which one?
07:11 Charlotte.
07:12 But what's great is that that's really just
07:26 like the coat hanger that hangs all
07:30 of these other sort of social aspects on top of it,
07:33 not to mention, like Ivan said, that sort of everyone's just
07:39 trying to figure out where they fit in in the world.
07:42 And a byproduct of him being there,
07:47 he unconsciously, I think he unconsciously sort of gets
07:52 swept up in the foundational elements of that family,
08:02 even through their trauma, is this idea of hope and love.
08:08 And I think that sort of pulls him out
08:12 of just being task-oriented to actually starting
08:15 to be and feel more human, which sort of opens him up
08:24 a little bit more and makes him a little bit more vulnerable.
08:27 But it's that family's struggle that tenderizes him in a way.
08:36 And then I think, I guess you start
08:39 to see him potentially start to heal his own shit
08:44 or at least have an opportunity maybe because of what he's seen
08:51 and felt from this family, and particularly, I think,
08:54 the kids.
08:54 [ENGINE RUMBLING]
09:11 Spot back there.
09:13 What spot?
09:14 Where she was taken.
09:15 [ENGINE RUMBLING]
09:39 And my last question, and I'll put this to Ivan,
09:42 is Simon was talking about a foundation.
09:45 And obviously, you have the foundation of the noir.
09:47 But that comes back to tone in many ways.
09:50 I mean, there's a very dry humor that sort of filters through,
09:56 this gallows humor.
09:58 And that allows certain things like the--
10:00 I remember there's one scene with Charlie just looking
10:04 at the rocks.
10:05 And it's just after he is set outside drinking a beer
10:09 and talk to Simon's character.
10:11 There's that sort of da-dun.
10:13 But as Simon said, it doesn't have to go anywhere.
10:17 You just have to see where it might go.
10:19 Can you talk about creating tone in that way?
10:22 Is it something that you saw in camera most times?
10:25 And then it was just sort of building it in the edit?
10:28 Or was it something that had-- because you did the music
10:31 and you shot the film, that it's something that sort of came
10:35 together as you went along?
10:36 No, I think from the very beginning,
10:40 when I start writing a project, I've
10:41 got a pretty strong feeling of the design of the film
10:46 and the design, I mean.
10:48 Not just the production design, I mean,
10:49 from the script to the characters
10:51 to the imagery and the sound design,
10:57 all kind of working in tandem.
11:00 So that comes very early on.
11:03 And by the time we get out to the location,
11:08 I'm pretty focused in on what I'm doing out there.
11:14 And the great thing is having an actor like Simon, where
11:18 you can just put a lot of trust in him.
11:20 And I know that he's able to carry the moments
11:27 within that design, which I've kind of created.
11:30 So just getting him getting out of the car
11:35 and just standing there and waiting for old Joseph
11:41 to come out of the cave and talk to him, just those moments,
11:45 that's how I kind of had written it in the script.
11:49 And during my writing process, I would go and find locations
11:55 and lock in locations.
11:58 And then go back to the writing process again.
12:00 So I actually know the location that I'm writing to.
12:03 And that helps enormously, because you
12:05 know that that location can fit that part of the design
12:09 of that moment within the script.
12:12 And yeah, and so the elements just all come together.
12:16 And yeah, and things just-- in the edit,
12:21 things didn't really change much at all.
12:23 We just lost a couple of scenes that weren't needed.
12:25 And yeah, that's the way it kind of happened.
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