In the opening shot of Arturo Ripstein's startling The Place without Limits, a massive bright red truck inches down a rough country road. As the truck crawls through a tiny Mexican village, El Oliva, a man in bed with an attractive young woman is aroused. He frets that Pancho is coming in the truck to harm him. The man says something about a red dress that is still ripped from the last time the brutish fellow visited El Oliva. The young woman calls the man "Daddy". Like the force of irresistable destiny, the red truck creeps down the vacant streets of the hamlet, moving between derelict-looking plaster and brick walls.
El Olivo has seen better days. The town is the personal property of its cacique, Don Alejo. The old man has bought up the town and, apparently, intends to resell it to the highest bidder. The only hold-out in the village is the brothel where the fearful man and the young woman live, together with a half-dozen fat and homely whores. There's a new inmate in the brothel, Cloti, who looks gaunt and fearful -- "she's a a sad whore," the man gripping the red dress says, "and that's bad luck." Don Alejo has cut off the power to the town in the hope that the brothel owner, the young woman in bed with Daddy -- she's called "Jap" -- will sell the place. The truck parks outside of the town's single gas station and the handsome, macho, Pancho eats breakfast with his brother-in-law, Octavo ("Tavo"). Tavo tells Pancho that he should buy a house for Emito, Pancho's wife -- Tavo doesn't like the fact that his home, where Emito is living, is overrun by Pancho's kids. Meanwhile, Manuela, the man with the red dress, is traipsing around town looking for red thread to mend the flamboyant evening gown. Manuela is homosexual and a transvestite -- everyone refers to the man as "her" or "she"; at least, the pronouns are right. Manuela has had some previous encounter with Pancho in which the dress was ripped and there's an implication that s/he may have seduced the tough guy and earned a beating thereby. Jap, who is indeed Manuela's daughter, says that her father is always vanishing for a few days and, then, straggling back to the brothel all beat up.
Ripstein's film is exceedingly verbose . The complicated and sordid situation requires vast amounts of explanation and, even, that isn't enough to motivate the peculiar events in the plot -- about half of the film is comprised of a flashback (confusing at first because it's not signaled in any way) that is, devised to provide additional context for the story. Ripstein is adapting a novel by the great Chilean novelist, Jose Donoso, who also collaborated on the script and the film is designed as a series of inexplicable provocations that are gradually made plausible by the backstory. The picture is certainly ambitious and the acting is first-rate and, gradually, indeed, the viewer comes to accept as possible some of the more outre elements of the plot. Clearly, Fassbinder's more outrageous films are an influence on Ripstein and, indeed, the lurid color scheme ornamenting the hellish melodrama seems derived from the German director (and the American films of Douglas Sirk). Other elements in the picture seem exported from Tennessee Williams and, in fact, the picture, about half of which is confined to the brothel, has a distinct theatrical aspect -- the lumbering red truck is a particularly effective, if obvious, symbol, a literary device, as it were, of the kind that we might find in one of Williams' plays. (The truck represents the overwhelming and destructive force of sexual passion.) The picture has too much expository dialogue but it builds to an alarming climax that has some of the impact of a classical tragedy. The theatrical elements of the story are signaled at the outset by a lengthy quote from Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus proclaiming that anywhere occupied by a damned person is Hell, the "place without limits."
From the flashback, we learn that Jap, Jr. is the daughter of Jap, Sr.. The luscious Jap senior operated the brothel in the good old days when the village was alive with people. On the day of Don Alejo's election to congress, the pols throw a big party for the cacique. Recruited for the shindig are several Hollywood-quality whores and wildly romantic Manuela who specializes in transvestite Flamenco dancing. During the party, everyone gets drunk and Jap Sr. is challenged to seduce the flamingly gay Manuela -- Don Alejo wants to watch them have intercourse. Jap Sr., who is so sexy that she would make a stone sweat, agrees to the wager on the condition that if she succeeds Don Alejo will deed over to her the whorehouse that she is operating for him (she is also Don Alejo's mistress). Of course, Jap Sr. proves irresistable and Don Alejo loses the bet and has to give his girlfriend title to the whorehouse. (The bet occurs only after Manuela has inflamed all of the partygoers by a Flamenco number and, then, dived half naked into the local river, a lagoon filled with nasty-looking duckweed.,) Now, 25 years later, Don Alejo is weak and elderly. He goes about with two vicious dogs and a chubby thug with a shotgun to threaten people. Jap Jr. is running the brothel -- her mother has apparently died although this isn't clear. Pancho is the son of Don Alejo's best peon and the old man has sent the lad to college so that he can become a doctor or lawyer. But Pancho is wild and undisciplined and he fails at everything to the horror of his mentor and protector Don Alejo. (I wonder if Pancho isn't, in fact, Don Alejo's illegitimate son.) Alejo has loaned Pancho money for the truck but the young man spends his income on whores and booze and has missed several payments. When Alejo berates Pancho after his return to town, the young man weeps. His tears are observed by Jap Jr. with horrific consequences later in the film.
Pancho's brother-in-law, Tavo, pays off the loan on the truck. (I didn't understand why he does this -- it appears that the two men are planning to go into a partnership using the truck.) Pancho and Tavo go to the brothel and get drunk to celebrate. Manuela flees to the chicken coop while his daughter dances with Pancho. (She has previously grabbed Pancho by the genitals at the town's railroad station and, so, there's obviously some strong mutual attraction.) Pancho decides to humiliate Jap Jr. and, probably, intends to rape and beat her up. (He wants her to weep since she has seen him crying.) Manuela observing that things in the whorehouse are going from bad to worse, makes a dramatic appearances in her newly mended red dress. He demands that a wildly romantic song, "The Legend of the Kiss", be played and whirls around Pancho. Pancho loses control and passionately kisses Manuela. But, then, ashamed of his homosexual impulses, he decides to murder Manuela. He and Tavo hop in the red truck and pursue Manueala who is fleeing madly through the ruinous town. They trap the transvestite in a dead end and beat him to death. Don Alejo has observed this, doesn't intervene, but says that he will take action to destroy Pancho. Jap Jr. sits alone in the brothel -- she says that Manuela will turn up in a few days "all beat up" but otherwise okay. "Then, the power will come back on," she says.
The film is brilliantly shot and crafted. It is weakened mostly by Donoso's loquacious screenplay which has many pointless subplots. Ripstein is a sort of anthropologist, exploring, it seems, the nether reaches of Mexican machismo. The film's point is that the fey, girlish Manuela proves to be truly, if disastrously, heroic -- in order to save his daughter, he distracts Pancho, seduces him, and, then, pays the inevitable price when the young man feels compelled to vindicate his embattled masculinity. The scenes in which Manuela seduces Pancho and, then, flees the looming red truck in a nightmarishly protracted chase have a raw power that is enhanced by Ripstein filming these scenes in very protracted sequence shots. The picture won just about every award possible in Mexico (numerous Cesars) and has been internationally acclaimed. Why don't we know more about Ripstein (and Mexican film in generally?) Curiously, the picture is dedicated to the director's mother and father.
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