Crónica de un niño solo

From the harsh reality and black and white existence of the 1950's comes this somber tale of a young boy imprisoned in the bleak world of Argentinian totalitarianism. Directed by Leonardo Favio, the film "Chronical of a Boy Alone " offers a brief visit to the sterile life of Polin, a boy abandoned by both family and society who briefly escapes to freedom. Polin exists in the day to day world of poverty and violence. Within the confines of a state run orphanage, he experiences both the indifference of the authorities and his peers. Friends are a hindrance and family a tiny island in a sea of despair. The film is in black and white as was life in the 1950s'. Brief nudity. ****

"Crónica..." is another great movie from one of our greatest directors. It depicts with poetry and simplicity the reality of a lonely boy, marginal from the system that is supposed to protect and educate, and instead only brutalizes him. As always, Favio is great finding poetic symbols to express things; the most notable in this movie, the horse at the end, representing the future of this child which, probably, ultimately has none.

The movie was interesting , trough I admit that the main ideas was missed by me while watching it. The comments posted previously in IMDb helped me to sort some things out. The version I watched was not that good in terms of quality , but still the movie itself seemed to me like a earlier version of " Bad Education " - trough it has its own uniquenesses .

Some of the scenes were very meaningful - starting from the first one on which we see the stairs and the boy standing alone in the middle. The movie really does a good job showing how brutal some adults could be - and that locking people out probably is not the best solution - especially for youth.

There were scenes in which you can't see what is happening - but the previous ones and the ones to follow provide ideas and the viewer imagination could make up for that. I personally liked that.