Limbo
(1999)

One aspect of "Limbo" that wasn't mentioned in any of the reviews I've read was the continual emphasis on story-telling. It starts, rather like L.A. Confidential with a voiceover telling the tourist story of a place (Alaska, in this case), which then slides into telling the reality. Throughout the first half of the movie, everybody tells stories. Guides wander through the scenes with tour groups, telling tales of local color and local celebrities. Entrepreneurs tell stories about how Alaska's scenery and history can be packaged and sold. And all the unemployed and barely employed at the local bar tell (and re-tell) stories to pass the time.

Singer Donna De Angelo tells her own story, both in her words and in her choice of songs. Her daughter Noelle tells a story to her class at school. Joe Gastineau doesn't tell his story, but other people do, usually for their own reasons. And Joe's half-brother Bobby tells Joe a story to get his help, and then mentions that people always want to hear the stories about their father and what a tough and crusty individual he was, but they usually don't want to hear about the reality, that he was an abusive tyrant.

Then, in the second half, when Bobby is dead, and Joe, Donna and Noelle are stranded on a deserted island, in danger from exposure and starvation, as well as from the men who killed Bobby, Donna continues to tell stories. She tells them that they will survive, that they will be rescued, and that this will all work out. There will be a happy ending.

Donna (as they build a fire): And then we hope that somebody sees this and wonders what the story is?

Noelle: Somebody who doesn't want to kill us.

Joe (seeing Donna's reaction): It's a possibility.

Donna: Jesus, you two are a perfect match. Doom and gloom.

Noelle: There's no use pretending.

Donna: Yes, there is! We're on a camping trip. We're on a survival school camping trip.

Joe still doesn't tell stories, but the real story-teller turns out to be Noelle. She finds the diary of Ann-Marie, a girl who lived on the island many years ago, and she reads from it to Joe and her mother every night, but each time she only reads as much as she feels like. And then, when she's read everything there is, she just goes ahead and makes up the rest of the story (her part is considerably more horrific than Ann-Marie's).

Even after Joe and Donna figure out that Noelle is making it up, they continue to listen every night, not letting on that they know. Because they're in the same position as we are, really.

When they're stranded, we're stranded with them, and we never find out how the other stories from the first half of the movie wind up. Does Harmon King get his boat back? Do Frankie and Lou make a go of their business? We never find out, any more than we find out the endings of the stories we've heard in the local bar, so we have to make up our own endings as best we can, just as Noelle does with the story of Ann-Marie.

So, the ending, which at first seems so abrupt, isn't so at all. Is Smilin' Jack coming back to rescue them, or to bring the men to kill them? How badly does he need money? How much does he blame Joe for his brother's death? We have to answer those questions for ourselves, in a way that suits us, just as Noelle does with Ann-Marie's diary.