BRA 120m Dir: Mario Peixoto
Watching my way through 1001 films has been a hugely fulfilling experience so far. I can't say I've enjoyed every film but there's been something to be got from every one so far. Until now.
Limite is an avant-garde film which is critically lauded. Now I'm not really an avant-garde person and wasn't particularly looking forward to watching this film. Somehow I still found myself disappointed.
Basically, there's two women and a man on a rowing boat on a vast expanse of ocean. That's about it. OK, to be fair there are flashback sequences which show how one woman has escaped from prison, the other has left an oppressive and unhappy marriage and the man is in love with someone else's wife.
On a positive note, it is undeniably beautifully shot. The camera lingers over the three actors and the boat they sit in for much longer than most directors would ever dare and despite so much of the film focusing on the same thing it manages to continue to show it in varying and interesting ways.
Other than that, I hated it. I don't mind films as art as such but I still think there needs to be some sort of storytelling in them. Whether that's a documentary or a work of fiction, there needs to be some form of story. Here the story is ludicrously thin and doesn't really go anywhere. There doesn't seem to be a point to it beyond a director going "look how clever I am". Mario Peixoto even shared an article praising the film that he had written pretending to be Sergei Eisenstein.
The lingering shots constantly drag you away from what little story there is and the film could probably be half the length just by trimming down the majority of the shots used. I spent the film going "that's a pretty shot. And it's going on for quite a while. And it's still going. And still. They are really clinging to this shot. It's still going. Is there a story here? It's still going. And still going. And still going. Etc".
I usually try to be positive in my reviews but this time I just can't. I utterly hated this.
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