Limite

In a drifting small boat, two women and a man recall their recent past. One of the women escaped from the prison; the other one was desperate; and the man had lost his lover. They have no further strength or desire to live and have reached the limit of their existences. Why they are together in this boat it is not clearly explained (or understood by me).

"Limite" is a Brazilian piece of art. The storyline is very simple, but the images are amazing, being a poetic and impressive exhibition of pictures in movement. The rhythm is very slow paced and sometimes the viewer certainly will get tired, but it is worthwhile. Mário Peixoto was sixteen years old when he directed this film. The film had been vanished for more than forty years, and was retrieved and partially restored in the 70's by Saulo Pereira de Mello and Plínio Sussekind. One small part was completely lost, and there is one reel in a very bad condition. The soundtrack, with magnificent musics of Borodin, Cesar Frank, Debussy, Prokofieff, Ravel, Satie and Strawinsky fits perfectly to this movie. "Limite" follows European standards, and in accordance with a Brazilian Video Guide, in a previous exhibition in London for filmmakers, Sergei Eisenstein was the first one to recognize the geniuses of "Limite", followed by Vsevolod Poudovkine. I believe that watching this movie is basic for any movie lover or student. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "Limite" ("Limit")

Obs.: On 12 November 2005 and 28 November 2007, I saw this magnificent movie again.

While most people seem to love or hate this film, I have mixed feelings. It is a beautiful, slow-paced film, about emotion rather than actions or events. Limite is full of beautiful black and white film images that are beautiful to look at, as long as one is willing to just sit back and enjoy the scenery. Eventually however, the scenery becomes too repetitious. I think a more experienced filmmaker would have edited the film down a bit, but instead every artistic shot was kept.

The scenario (plot is too strong a word) involves three people adrift in a rowboat. The three have each cut themselves off from the world, and we see in their memories their separate paths to isolation. The memories are not the structured flashbacks normally used to advance a narrative, but instead shown as flashes of imagery, closer to the randomness of true human memories. The process works well for the first half, building an atmosphere of isolation for Woman # 1 and Woman # 2. However, the film begins to drag with Man # 1, whose backstory is oddly more complex.

If you enjoy a film that is a little different, experimental, or just like watching beautiful imagery, you might enjoy letting this film wash over you.

'Limite' is a great, poetic, inspiring mystery ride. I dare to say that it is the visually best film I've seen from that era. The slow, unique pace and the repeating structure of its main musical motif, Erik Satie's theme 'Gymnopédie', intensify the suggestive effect of the immensely beautifully captured images in a magnificent montage and unfolds one of the great philosophical questions of the 20th century: the unsolvable contradiction between transience of human life and the eternity of the universe. The story is hard to access, because Peixoto almost always works with flashbacks and rare title links, so we have to solve the puzzle for our own. Nevertheless, it's the imagery that is so fascinating, full of suicidal feelings, desperateness, tristesse and wonderfully compositions of nature - trees, foggy landscapes, waves. An unparalleled cinematic experience I will not forget and of course highly recommended.

At first glance, it might appear somewhat ironic that LIMITE remains the one work with which most people identify multi-talented Mario Peixoto today. While Peixoto kept writing poetry, essays and various manuscripts throughout his life, this film remained his one contribution in the cinematic world. After its initial release in 1931, the film was virtually unavailable for decades, making it hard for the general public and historians alike to judge for themselves if this so-called "masterpiece" which Peixoto had produced in his youth really was worthy of so much acclaim. However, recently I had the opportunity of seeing LIMITE on a big screen with live musical arrangement, and I am forced to admit that the film's current status as a phenomenon has rather little to do with its unavailability; it remains genuinely impressive, starkingly beautiful to this day.

The story finds several mentally defeated persons recalling their past in a boat. Peixoto takes use of several flash-backs which might appear confusing, especially since there are only some very few title cards present throughout this silent film. However, exactly what the story is about is less relevant (and interesting) than how it is being visually executed, and furthermore the emotional impact it leaves upon us. Through his extensive use of close-ups, landscapes, storms and shadows, Peixoto manipulates us into imagining his visions as being truly real, physical presences. For instance, when showing us a group of people enjoying a Charlie Chaplin-short at a theater, his way of visually describing the term laughter becomes so convincing that we nearly forget that we, in fact, are observing another group of observers; they become part of us, and we flow within one another into one eternity.

Peixoto covers laughter, and he covers death, nature, despair and small-town life. You find yourself sitting at the edge of your seat not because you're wondering what's going to happen next, but due to what you're observing each moment. Even though it is evident that Peixoto was heavily inspired by earlier experimental film directors (the masters of German expressionism come to mind), one of the major reasons why it leaves such a profound impact is precisely because it was made at such a late point in the silent era; too late to make an impact on the silent medium, it is almost disturbing how bluntly it reveals exactly what was lost when silent films died. For a long time, the focus on dialogue in talking films made directors blind, forcing the film medium to take one huge step backwards in terms of aesthetics. Of course, things have changed to the better since that time, but LIMITE still remains a thought-provoking reminder as to not forget that film, after all, first and foremost is a visual medium, where beauty should play a central part.

The real Limite, as opposed to its myth, is an elaborate experimental home movie made by a very bright 22-year-old, getting his rocks off about his frustrated love life -- an affair with a married woman. The film got produced only because of his family's wealth and connections -- but after it was made, no one in Brazil would distribute it, so it disappeared from sight and gradually languished into a "cult film."

It's worth a look for its ravishing flashes of brilliance, and especially for its use of the camera as an active participant -- allowed to express the frustration & rage that the characters are "limited" from expressing openly (as extra-marital relationships were still a taboo subject in Brazil in 1930?). But without the musical sound track assembled from well-known compositions by Satie, Debussy, Stravinsky, etc. it'd be unwatchable for most of its 2 hours of meandering and deliberately veiled self-indulgence.

A cinematic masterpiece? On a par with films by Dreyer or Vigo or Welles? That's just Brazilian hype. Apparently abetted by the director himself who in 1965 -- out of yet more frustration & rage at the poor reception his magnum (and only) film opus had received -- published a Portuguese translation of a glowing review by none other than "Sergei Eisenstein" -- but no one could locate the original, and Peixoto finally acknowledged, shortly before his death in 1992, that he had penned it himself.