Limite

I will keep watching, I will keep watching, I will keep watching.

Mário Piexoto, 1931. Before I knew anything about this film, I was pronouncing the title “lie-might”, as if it was some kind of a construction material you would apply to your patio. I imagined this chemical taking a very long time to dry. In reality, it’s pronounced differently (lee–meech, Portugese for “limit”), but this quality of a make-believe compound is remarkably similar to that of the film itself in that there are better things to do than watch it while you wait for it to do whatever it’s supposed to do.

Critics love it because it’s experimental, avante garde, etc. They drool over the extended montage of breaking waves to celebrate a “visual poem” that eschews any kind of narrative. I’ll take their word for it that Piexoto broke some barriers, but to me, Limite is a twenty-two year old using the camera as a masturbatory aide; a promising but immature director in desperate need of an editor to forcefully remove his hand from the camera and put an end to all the gooning.

It has its place in the curriculum of silent world cinema but that is, without question, its limite.