Sexuality and real-estate come to a head over a brothel in small-town Mexico in this lost queer melodrama from filmmaker Arturo Ripstein. The Place Without Limits (AKA Hell Without Limits) revels in the intertwined passions, lusts, and misplaced hopes of gender-fluid bordello owner Manuel/a (Roberto Cobo, Los Olividados) and his alluring daughter—who are both hot for recently returned volatile drifter, Pancho. Meanwhile, a greedy capitalist trying to buy the whole village and Manuel/a’s establishment is the final holding required for a monopoly. Mentored by Luis Buñuel, Ripstein infuses the outlandishly tawdry with humor and pathos, while his frank depiction of both homosexuality and violent prejudice make this 1978 film truly ahead of its time. 

Print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive, rights courtesy of IMCINE

In Spanish with English subtitles