Limite “accomplishes what Germaine Dulac had demanded in 1927: the ‘real’ filmmaker should ‘divest cinema of all elements not particular to it, to seek its true essence in the consciousness of movement and visual rhythms.’” – Michael Korfmann, senses of cinema

One of the plentiful buried treasures of world cinema, Limite (shown only once before at the Cinematheque) has recently resurfaced in exclusive screenings at Cannes, Rotterdam, and Paris following a lengthy period of inaccessibility – one which helped cement its mythic aura and status as “unknown masterpiece,” a term used by French critic Georges Sadoul following his unsuccessful pilgrimage to see it in Rio de Janeiro in the early Sixties. Limite is Mário Peixoto’s one and only film, an enthralling work of pure cinema with stylistic affinities to Fritz Lang, Murnau, Pabst, and Man Ray, and widely considered one of the best Brazilian films of all time. Inspired by an arresting André Kertész photograph that the then twenty-two-year-old director encountered in Paris, the film exudes an ecstatic Expressionism in its high contrast, elliptical depiction of three castaways battling unforgiving waters on a rickety boat. The precariousness of their existence is uncannily mirrored by the threatened annihilation of the film’s original nitrate images, some of which succumbed to vinegar syndrome before a dupe copy was made and restored. The resulting damage has created a fascinating artifact, both beautiful and haunting. Never released commercially, the film was shown at ciné-clubs within Brazil, then at a few private screenings (most notably for Orson Welles on one occasion and Renée Falconetti on another), then withdrew into obscurity partially on account of poor prints. A protracted restoration prevented widespread exposure, though its reputation grew continuously, due to a polemical piece written by Glauber Rocha (who declaimed its bourgeois status), and support from Walter Salles who,