Sunday, March 25, 2018

LIMITE (1931, BRAZIL)

Limite: I think we're going to need a bigger boat

Limite is a film by poetic (and one film only) filmmaker Mario Peixoto about four people on a boat who remember their lives through flashbacks while still hanging tough in the boat for about two hours of film time. I get it! I get it already!..it's a real art piece and a lot of the images are pretty interesting most of the time, though I began to find the enterprise a bit tedious after awhile.

But wait!...Limite's story may be better if you study some of the legend surrounding the film. It was thought lost for years. It had a reputation for being influential of cinematic style for years even though no one was able to see it! Orson Welles was a famous Limite devotee. The film was restored frame by frame in recent years leading up to a 2017 Criterion release (Martin Scorsese is also a fan...Surprise!). It is also regarded as perhaps the most important film in Brazilian cinema.

If you want to read a nice in-depth article on everything Limite in about ten pages, I recommend the article referenced below, which is available on some online databases. 

The Lie That Told the Truth (Self) publicity strategies and the myth of Mario Peixoto's Limite
-Bruce Williams, Film History, volume 17, pp.392-403.

4 comments:

  1. Not a fan.

    I have to say, when the Tome of Knowledge tries to justify the presence of a film based on who liked it, I think they're grasping at straws.

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  2. I have to agree with Steve. That is a sure sign that the movie will be problematic. Until I reached the experimental movies of the early sixties I was convinced this would be the worst, most pointless movie on the list. Now I am not so certain and that is not to the benefit of Limité.

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