Limite (film)
Encyclopedia
Limite is a film by Brazilian director and writer Mario Peixoto
(1908–1992), filmed in 1930 and first screened in 1931
.
Sometimes cited as the greatest of all Brazilian films, this 120-minute silent
experimental
feature by novelist Peixoto, who never completed another film, was seen by Orson Welles
and won the admiration of everyone from Sergei Eisenstein
to Georges Sadoul
to Walter Salles
.
.
For Peixoto, the experience offered by Limite cannot be adequately captured by language, but was made to be felt. Therefore, the audience is left with images of a synthetic and pure language of cinema. According to the director, his film is meticulously precise as invisible wheels of a clock, where long shots are surrounded and linked by shorter ones as in a planetary system.
Peixoto characterizes Limite as a 'desperate scream' aiming for resonance instead of comprehension. The movie shows without words and without analysis. The film projects itself as a tuning fork, a pitch, a resonance of time itself, capturing the flow between past and present, object details and contingence as if it had always existed in the living and in the inanimate, or detaching itself tacitly from them. Since Limite is more of a state than an analysis, characters and narrative lines emerge, followed by a probing camera exploring angels, details, possibilities of access and fixation, only then to fade out back into the unknown, a visual stream with certain densifications or illustrations within the continues flow of time. According to Peixoto, all these poetic transpositions find despair and impossibilities; a luminous pain which unfolds in rhythm and coordinates the images of rare precision and structure.
Mario Peixoto
Mário Rodrigues Breves Peixoto was mainly known for his first and only film Limite, a silent experimental film filmed in 1930 and premiered in Rio de Janeiro on 17 May 1931. Peixoto wrote, directed and took up a minor role in the film...
(1908–1992), filmed in 1930 and first screened in 1931
1931 in film
-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:*Best Picture: Cimarron - MGM*Best Actor: Lionel Barrymore - A Free Soul*Best Actor: Wallace Beery - The Champ*Best Actor: Fredric March - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...
.
Sometimes cited as the greatest of all Brazilian films, this 120-minute silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
experimental
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
feature by novelist Peixoto, who never completed another film, was seen by Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
and won the admiration of everyone from Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
to Georges Sadoul
Georges Sadoul
Georges Sadoul was a French journalist and cinema writer.Once a surrealist, he became a communist in 1932. He was a journalist of the Lettres Françaises....
to Walter Salles
Walter Salles
Walter Moreira Salles, Jr. is a Brazilian filmmaker and film producer of international prominence.-Life and career:Salles was born in Rio de Janeiro. He is the son of Elizinha Goncalves and Walter Moreira Salles, a Brazilian banker and ambassador, and the brother of João Moreira Salles, also a...
.
Plot and Analysis
A man and two women lost at sea in a rowboat. Their pasts are conveyed in flashbacks throughout the film. The unusual structure has kept the film in the margins of most film histories, where its been known mainly as a provocative and legendary cult filmCult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
.
For Peixoto, the experience offered by Limite cannot be adequately captured by language, but was made to be felt. Therefore, the audience is left with images of a synthetic and pure language of cinema. According to the director, his film is meticulously precise as invisible wheels of a clock, where long shots are surrounded and linked by shorter ones as in a planetary system.
Peixoto characterizes Limite as a 'desperate scream' aiming for resonance instead of comprehension. The movie shows without words and without analysis. The film projects itself as a tuning fork, a pitch, a resonance of time itself, capturing the flow between past and present, object details and contingence as if it had always existed in the living and in the inanimate, or detaching itself tacitly from them. Since Limite is more of a state than an analysis, characters and narrative lines emerge, followed by a probing camera exploring angels, details, possibilities of access and fixation, only then to fade out back into the unknown, a visual stream with certain densifications or illustrations within the continues flow of time. According to Peixoto, all these poetic transpositions find despair and impossibilities; a luminous pain which unfolds in rhythm and coordinates the images of rare precision and structure.
Preservation Status
The film has been restored, with the latest restored version to have its U.S. premiere in Brooklyn, New York in November 2010.Cast (in alphabetical order)
- Iolanda Bernardes
- Edgar Brasil
- Olga Breno as Woman #1
- Brutus Pedreira as Man #2
- Mario PeixotoMario PeixotoMário Rodrigues Breves Peixoto was mainly known for his first and only film Limite, a silent experimental film filmed in 1930 and premiered in Rio de Janeiro on 17 May 1931. Peixoto wrote, directed and took up a minor role in the film...
- Tatiana Rey as Woman #2
- Carmen Santos
- Raul Schnoor as Man #1