Sightlines · reception

How The Place Without Limits was received

1978 · Arturo Ripstein · The Place Without Limits on Sightlines

The arc

A prize-winner at San Sebastián in 1978 and a scandal at home for putting queer desire at the center of macho Mexican cinema, it's since been fully canonized — restored, taught, and now routinely called one of the greatest Mexican films ever made.

What’s debated

Fans still argue over whether its portrait of queer longing in a machista world is decades ahead of its time or an early case of the doomed-queer tragedy trope.

Its footprint

La Manuela's red flamenco dress and seduction dance is one of the indelible images of Latin American cinema, and the film stands as a foundational touchstone of queer Mexican film — cited constantly by later filmmakers working on gender and machismo.

Where it stands

An essential of both the Mexican canon and world queer cinema — the standard entry point into Ripstein and a 'you must have seen this' for Latin American film lovers.

Did you know? Manuel Puig (Kiss of the Spider Woman) wrote the screenplay adaptation of José Donoso's novel but had his name removed from the credits after falling out with Ripstein — and star Roberto Cobo was the same actor who played El Jaibo in Buñuel's Los olvidados nearly thirty years earlier.