El Lugar Sin Limites (Spanish) [The Place Without Limits]

An unusual film, this was probably way ahead of its time when it came out in 1978. This is not a gay film per say, but given that one of the leads is gay man and the film talks about homophobia to some extent, makes it a good candidate for it to be reviewed here. Mostly this film is about being a macho guy, greed, family honor, homophobia all rolled into one.

The film is set in a very small town of Mexico where we meet some interesting characters. Rich and elderly congressman Don Alejo is poised to sell the town for a profit,, the only thing missing is a whorehouse to close the deal. It is owned by an aging gay man Manuela, who cross dresses to perform dance and his daughter. Another important character is Pancho. Don Alejo tries to control him because he owes him money, but also Pancho had a bog fight with Manuela a year ago and Manuela is very scared of him. He wants to sell whore house and move away from the town but the daughter will have none of it. Through flashbacks we see how Manuela came to this town and ended up having a daughter and own this place. Things come to a head as Pancho breaks Alejo's hold on him, then flirts and dances with Manuela and even kisses him. When confronted by his brother-in-law for kissing a layman, he beats shit out of Manuela killing him.

This film was apparently based on a best seller written by a Chilean author. I can't even imagine the kind of scandal it must have created for an openly gay cross dressing character as its lead. I feel like somehow the homophobia and elements of it got diluted. I would have thought more and anger from a person like Pancho which could lead him to kill the person whom he was kissing just moments ago. I would like to believe that there is a lot more to Pancho's and Manuela's story than the film leads us to believe. We retold that Pancho was made to play with girls as kid, so is somewhere, despite his very macho image, is Pancho obsessed and in love with Manuela? And even reverse, was Manuela also attracted to his animal magnetism? I guess going a bit detailed into these aspects would have been way too forward for 1978. Despite, all this the film was a decent watch. It should have worked nice when it came out, but I can see it still has bits and pieces of charm somewhere there. (5/10)

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