BBC Production, Left Bank Pictures present Pippa Bennett-Warner (Eileen), Andrew Dennis (Barrington), Nadine Marshall (Janet), CJ Beckford (Gary), Patrick Robinson (Anthony), Jay Simpson (Trevor), Taija Bryan (Jada), Florisa Kamara (Ashley). Screenplay, Stephen Thompson; Co-Producer, Fiona Lampten; Executive Producer For BBC, Mona Quareshi; Exec. Producers, Lila V. Rawlings, Andy Harris; Director of Photography, Rina Yang. © 2020
Maybe it’s me, fair enough I could say. I am not alone in knowledge of what am about to say, though. I remember pretty well when in 1974 Bob Marley released No Woman No Cry. I was coming of age, and then smoking and getting high on marijuana was a rite of passage for the ‘in crowd’ of my age group. One would come out of Sallu’s ‘pote’ puffing out purple haze of marijuana and billowing the smoke out of our teenage old noses. Boy! Those were the best of times. The good old days. Then came later that year, I guess it was in May, of the same ’74, Jimmy Cliff laid his Sitting In Limbo on us. We sang it together with Jimmy in Night Clubs. Diana was the ‘go-to club’ in Kenema, that time. Fetes, Afternoon Jumps at Goodings, anyone?And half the time, drunk and high as we would be, some in a drunken stupor, mimicked Sitting In Limbo, to tears.
Until Sitting In Limbo, the (2020) film, came out, I never considered the lyrics’ seriousness and poetic essence. I assumed it for the dead in hereafter, their souls sitting in Hades, in Limbo, waiting for the Angels to open the gate to Heaven. Nothing more, nothing less.
I have to write the title of Sitting In Limbo in caps because it strikes so much a cord in my goddamn heart. It really does. I remember when I became a United States of America citizen. You know I cried? Why did I? I have just renounced the country of my birth, where they buried my navel-string. I remember my father planted a tree over my navel-string in the yard to commemorate my birth, and I was leaving all behind for good, ’cause I was in love with this strange country. Anthony Bryant (Patrick Robinson) was an eight-year-old brought to London by his migrant-worker, Jamaican mother. The mother had spent thirty years of her life in London doing menial jobs at the British National Health Services. She had retired to Jamaica ten years ago. Anthony, now in his late fifties, keeps promising his mother a visit. “Before too long, we are planning to come to see you before the year’s out.”
Bryant’s mother, “Boy, shut your mouth. I’ve been back here ten years. Every year, you say the same thing.”
“I’m serious. I applied for my passport last week.”
This is where Sitting In Limbo as a story gathers momentum. Anthony’s passport application is denied because he is illegal and could be slated for deportation. Yes, removal back to Jamaica, where he left with his mother since eight years old. Anthony, his common-in-law wife, and the two British-born kids of his went into a panic. “No, not my Anthony, and “no, not our father.”
Anthony’s supervisor called him to her office to break the bad news from the Home Office. “They say you are not eligible to work in the UK. They say you are not a UK citizen.”
Anthony, “Is this a joke?”
Supervisor, “They say I have to let you go.”
Anthony is picked up and detained by the immigration office. Himself, he is bewildered by the whole thing. He had worked, rented, and paid taxes in England all his adult years, and all of a sudden, he is illegal. That could shock the hell out of any immigrant. It’s similar to the last seconds of breath one takes before life goes out, and then your entire life flashes in your eyes. Anthony is in a trance. He has never confronted such a legal conundrum. And he doesn’t have the wherewithal for the challenge; even if he had, which will hardly come by, he wouldn’t know where to start. “If you had gone down on your knees a long time ago, this wouldn’t happen, “cries Janet (Nadine Marshall). They had never married.
Immigration takes him in. They’ll hardly disclose to him his charges, but they drive him hundred and sixty-six miles North of London, away from his family. In a tense scene, all members of the family are solemnly gathered. Not a pin drop. His two classmates Trevor and Barrington are there when always he calls. The whole room heaves a sigh. He is imprisoned at Dorset. “Dorset?!” Janet, with fear in her eyes, asked.
Well, they’re
Putting up resistance
But I know my faith
Will lead me on
Anthony is let go for no reason. With his family that evening, he reminisces about the old man Thadeus he meets in prison. His Jamaican wife died on him, and it is only him and God left on this earth. “And sometimes I lay there thinking whose going to be next.” You must see Janet’s face reminiscing, standing in the empty kitchen after moving out of the evicted apartment. Their lives have been shattered! She has raised all her children in that kitchen, leaving that memory behind to stay with their daughter, Eileen, she could hardly swallow.
That evening, Anthony’s mates Trevor and Barrington come to take him out on the town. He is morose and seems heavy to get into a happy element. His present immigration dilemma weighs on him. His life is in Limbo. The immigration thing haunted him: he wanders from his bedroom onto the street one night, chasing after the urgent bang by Law Officers he thought he heard on his door. Hallucination! Janet holds him back indoors.
Upon reporting for one of his every fortnight visit to the Immigration Authorities, Anthony is detained for the second time at the Campsfield House Immigration Center. The last stop before illegals shipped out to Jamaica. “The deportation order will be executed in 72 hours. An immigration officer will escort you to Jamaica,” the officer says. Janet is furious. “Upon my dead body,” she swears.
Anthony’s Janet, his daughter, Eileen (Pippa Bennett-Warner), son, Gary (CJ Beckford), and two friends, Trevor (Jay Simpson) and Barrington (Andrew Dennis), in a hurry, raise 1,500 British Pounds to hire a lawyer to injunction the deportation order. They did. Anthony is granted a stay, but he has to go to court. That could be his saving grace!
In the true sense, the British government has been politically and racially playing Anthony and his kind all along. Anthony was brought by his migrant worker mother to England when Britain needed migrant workers to fill in the dearth of cheap labor in the country after WW II. They had welcomed them, this ‘Windrush Generation’ with “Welcome Home” but now they want to do away with them and their offsprings like Anthony, they become “illegals.” In 2018, the British Home Office destroyed the landing cards of thousands of Windrush Immigrants in the UK. Between 2012-18, 83 members of that Windrush generation were being deported despite the right to live in the UK. Old Thadeus suffered that faith. Anthony was caught in the crosshairs when he applied for a passport, and that is how he got locked up.
Sitting here in Limbo
But I know it won’t be long.
Sitting here in Limbo,
Like a bird without a song.
Well, they’re putting up resistance
But I know that my faith will lead me on
In Court, Anthony’s Barrister argues:
Mr. Bryan has lived and worked in this country for over fifty years, my Lord. His mother worked for NHS for more than 30. In addition, all his family, some of whom are in court today, are all British by birth, as are his grandchildren. This is home. To forcibly remove him from it would be a clear contravention of his human rights and a travesty of justice. For this reason, we are seeking an indefinite injunction against his deportation order. She asks Anthony what his regrets are?:
“Well, basically, I lost everything. I lost my job. I lost my home. I lost my freedom. I lost my identity. But when they tried to deport me and couldn’t, well, that proved to be more than ever that I am British.”
Judge: Having listened carefully to the presentation made by the learned counsel, it would appear, once again, as if the Home Office is playing fast and loose with its interpretation of immigration law. I am sufficiently satisfied that a compelling case has been made to order an indefinite relief against the deportation order.
On the 1st of June 2020, Anthony received an offer of compensation for just one part of his application-unlawful detention. He is granted relief to stay in the UK as a citizen and granted a passport to visit his mother in Jamaica.
Sitting In Limbo as Jimmy Cliff’s lyrics and now as a film, makes sense to me that was never made all my life of rollicking in that reggae tune. I did not give much attention to the acting, directing, and shooting techniques (photography) of this movie. The subject matter can be engrossing. However, Kudos to the Screenwriter, Stephen Thompson, for such a wonderful narrative.