Limite (1931)

Three people sail aimlessly while remembering their past.

Director:

Mario Peixoto

Writer:

Mario Peixoto

Stars:

Olga Breno, Tatiana Rey, Raul Schnoor

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Olga Breno	...	Woman #1
Tatiana Rey	...	Woman #2
Raul Schnoor	...	Man #1
Brutus Pedreira	...	Man #2 (as D.G. Pedrera)
Carmen Santos	...	Woman eating a fruit
Mario Peixoto	...	Man sitting at the cemetery
Edgar Brasil	...	Man asleep in the theatre
Iolanda Bernardes	...	Woman at the sewing-machine

Storyline

In a drifting small boat, two women and a man recalls their recent past. One of the woman 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.

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Plot Keywords:

boat | organist | memory | one word title | legs | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Details

Country:

Brazil

Language:

Portuguese

Release Date:

October 1931 (UK)

Also Known As:

Limit

Filming Locations:

Mangaratiba, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Company Credits

Production Co:

Cinédia

Technical Specs

Runtime:

114 min 114 min

Sound Mix:

Silent Mono (sound-on-disc)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was re-issued at the Chaplin Club, Rio de Janeiro, in October 17, 1931, for a special showing in homage to 'Charlie Chaplin', who appears briefly in the film in an insert taken from The Adventurer.

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Connections

Featured in The Story of Film: An Odyssey: Episode #1.4 (2011)

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Soundtracks

"The Firebird"
(1910) (excerpt)
Composed by Igor Stravinsky
Published by Columbia Records (1928)

User Reviews

Limit

'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.