Los olvidados

To better understand this movie is necessary to make some history. By 1950, Mexico was involved in the filming golden era. Histories about brave Mexican machos riding horses, singing songs to beautiful girls and drinking a lot of tequila were produced with success. By that time, actors like Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete and Pedro Armedariz were real idols and people were in line to see the most recent productions. Then Luis Buñuel wrote the story about the poverty and conditions of street children in Mexico City. No matter that the production, photography, direction and even the performances of relatively unknown actors were most than good, no matter that for the first time in Mexico someone produced a film totally different, with the influence of the Italian Neo-realism, No matter that someone had the guts to film the reality of the majorities living in big cities, Buñuel was severally criticized and even censored. The film produced a lot of reactions in the prosper Mexico. How is possible that someone could say that this is the reality in this country? How is possible that a person from another country filmed a Mexican history about something that really he didn't know? At that time, most of the persons were against the movie, but then something happen. In Cannes Festival (1951) Los Olvidados received the award for best direction and all reviews and comments about the film and Buñuel were positive. When the international festival ended, Mexican authorities decided to release the movie again to the cinemas and the success was immediate. By the end of the year (1951) Los olvidados won 11 Ariel awards (Oscar equivalent for Mexican productions), including the golden Ariel for best picture and three different awards for Buñuel (directing, screenplay and adaptation). Why is important to mention this? Fortunately, for the good of filming industry worldwide, Buñuel received the support and budget to continue with his projects. Probably the history had been very different if Cannes festival didn't recognize the work of one of the greatest directors ever. Now, this movie is considered as a cult and classic, and a reference for many film makers world wide. Directors like Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, Godard, Kubrick and so many more talked about this film (and Buñuel work in general) as magnificent, superb, brilliant. That's why this film is so important. Talking about the movie and the history, we can stand out the surrealist images along the entire movie. The scene of Pedrito's dream is nothing but brilliant. Then when the blind man is assaulted by the young kids there is a reference with the chicken in front of him. When El Jaibo is killed by the cop we see the image floating around with a dog. This is the first FREE work of Buñuel since the "the golden age" in 1930. He made a totally new concept for Mexican films. He told the audiences that real life is not a happy history, is made of common people with problems, passions, misery and even in that conditions is possible to have the most deeply emotions. He showed on screen the impacting endings, beautiful images and shakes the conscience of thousands. "Los olvidados" is one of his finest films and with no doubt the first great Mexican movie (fair to mention Emilio Fernadez' "Maria Candelaria (1944) and "Publerina" (1948) as it closest contending). Recently and alternate ending for the movie was released to the public. In that sequence we saw Pedrito returning to the children house, after he bought the cigarettes to the principal. A happy end. He was forced to shoot it, but again, fortunately the crude and strong outcome prevailed for the good of the history, to show us that a lot of times real life is not necessary a happy conclusion, that sometimes there are children with good intentions in wrong environments, that poverty is a monster that is consuming the majority, that horrible crimes could be committed with apparently cold blood; that sometimes someone (like Buñuel) could shake our conscience once a while. "Los Olvidados" a must see movie and reference.

Atheist, Marxist, Freudian, Surrealist, anarchist, fetishist, satirist, or Spaniard, Luis Buñuel was all these or more… One of the greatest of all filmmakers, Buñuel expressed an extraordinary personal vision of the world through an exceptional self-effacing special taste, creating a body of work unequaled in its abundance of meaning and its power by any other…

In 1946, Buñuel moved to Mexico where, between more conventional assignments, he summed up his creativity with a vengeance… His first masterpiece of this prolific period, "The Young and the Damned" was a masterpiece of social surrealism and the founding work of third world barrio repulsion…

Portraying the distress of delinquents in MexicoCity's streets, he admitted the effects of shockingly cruel environment but declined to glamorize his victim-heroes: the gang torments a blind beggar who is himself a skillful paedophile, while a Freudian dream the most 'innocent' boy fights a friend for his mother' s sexual favors…

The film is powerful enough to make a one firm man weep or encourage a true-believer to lose hope… Once seen, its disturbing images can never be forgotten

Where do I start? Perhaps, by writing WOW a few hundred times in a row...

The very opening shots and voice-over warn us that this was not an optimistic movie. It instantly made me believe this would be Las Hurdes in Mexico, something like a fictionalised version of Buñuel's 1933 faux-documentary about the extreme poverty of the peasants in the remote Spanish Las Hurdes region. In the first half hour, Los Olvidados's mood and style remained faithful to the influence of several Italian neo-realist movies I'd seen, namely De Sica and perhaps some early Pasolini (namely, Accattone). In a looser sense, maybe also Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay! seemed to have gotten some inspiration from Buñuel's movie. And finally, I could also and more obviously see that Fernando Meirelles's Cidade de Deus (City of God) owed more than a little to this 1950 masterpiece. I love it when I finally get to see the movie that has influenced so many other (usually minor, but more famous) films that have followed it even several decades after its release! Los Olvidados would still have been an excellent film, even if it had remained Italian neo-realistic-like till the end. But to my delight and wonder, it became something much more unique and memorable as soon as its own distinct, Buñuelian flavour kicked in halfway through, IMO elevating this picture to something more than "just" powerfully gritty and cinematically honest (as can be said and admired in the works of De Sica, Rossellini et al). To be honest, though I AM Italian and the spirit of neo-realism is somehow deeply embedded in my cultural subconscious, my problem with the Italian neo-realists has always been their lack of vision, or refusal to also venture into the otherworldly, the spiritual, the dream-like, the allegorical. Though I bow before the greatness of the Italian neo-realist masters, I will never feel completely conquered by their otherwise mesmerising pictures. Before watching Los Olvidados, I was never quite sure of the reason for this. With this movie, Buñuel has finally put his finger on exactly what I've always found was missing in pictures like Sciuscià, Accattone and Roma Città Aperta for them to truly get not just under my skin, but into my wildest dreams and imagination as well - an ability to interweave the fantastical in something that couldn't be more grounded in reality. Yet, why can't the lives of the underprivileged underbelly of the world, in this case a Mexican shantytown of the late 40s, also evoke magic? Is the fantastical only a privilege of the bougeoisie? I think not! Thank you, Buñuel, for inspiring me into thinking about this...

Buñuel's most serious, concerned and poignant film. If 'les Quatre cent coups' (1959, Truffaut) is good, this is brilliant. Only the cinematography, which is still very good, can not equal the level of that film. Everything in this meticulous film has a purpose: nothing is left to coincidence and 10 seconds missed is fatal (the brilliance we're only used from Kurosawa and Eisenstein). Buñuel uses his intuitive graphics and metaphoric sequences, rather than fancy lighting and cocky cinematography, to emphasize his concern with the boys (the protagonists: the 'forgotten ones') and his aversion to the apathy of the fathers (who haven't much screen time) who mind-numbed think about sanctions rather than the causes of the delinquency.

'Los Olvidados' deals with the distance between two generations, especially the distance between fathers and sons. Where that distance in 'a Clockwork Orange' and 'Fight Club' leads to virtually unbridled violence, and in 'les Quatre cent coups' (1959, Truffaut) to other misdemeanors, not to mention the innocent mischief in 'les Mistons' (1957, Truffaut, short), here it leads to callousness and abuse of whatever is in the way. But in the way of what? Do the lives of 'the forgotten ones' have a direction at all, apart from trite survival?

Although M (1931, Fritz Lang) already focuses on the psychological problems that delinquents can have (first serial killer on celluloid ever), the other movies mentioned above are all younger, so I tend to believe that Los Olvidados was a groundbreaking film and inspired the other filmmakers. Correct me if I'm wrong. Los Olvidados deals with the distance from the apathetic parents, in Clockwork the parents are petit-bourgeois populace, in Fight Club seem to exist no parents at all (generation x) and in Quatre cent coups the parents have their own problems and not enough persuasiveness to create a solid ground. Finally Los Olvidados reminded me of 'Rocco e i suoi fratelli' (1962, Visconti), where a family moves to the city too and a disciplinary father figure lacks.

This is another Buñuel film that seems to have no precise beginning and no end. It's just there with all its brilliance to raise a matter, and should not be missed, for it demands a distinguished place in film history somewhere between M and A Clockwork Orange.

Why o why can't we vote 11 :(

After his exile from his native Spain, director Luis Bunuel moved to Mexico in 1946, gaining citizenship in 1949. It was here where he would make his more generic films (by his standards), as he honed his own directorial skill while never straying too far from his surrealistic background. After the success of his comedy The Great Madcap (1949), he was commissioned by producer Oscar Dancigers to make a serious film about child poverty in Mexico City, and out of it came Los Olvidados, or The Young and the Innocent, to give it it's American title. Bunuel apparently spent months disguised as a homeless amongst the poverty- stricken children of the slums in order to research, and if that tale is true, it certainly came off, as Los Olvidados is one of the best and most realistic depictions of the innocent turning to crime in a fit of desperation.

The film follows three children in the same slum. Pedro (Alfonso Mejia) is a young tearaway who wants to change his ways and work, in order to help out his mother who neglects him due to her constant work. 'Little Eyes' (Mario Ramirez) has been abandoned by his father, and is adopted by the blind beggar Don Carmelo (Miguel Inclan), a bitter man who frequently voices his opinions on the young criminals of the city. El Jaibo (Robert Cobo) has just been released from prison and immediately sets about gaining revenge of the boy he thinks ratted him out. Jaibo and Pedro corner the boy, only for Jaibo to bludgeon him to death, and the two boys flee. Pedro struggles to keep himself out of trouble and leaves home after being accused of stealing a knife, only to find his and Jaibo's paths repeatedly crossing.

At its heart, this is pure neo-realism, sharing its tone most obviously with Vittorio de Sica's masterpiece The Bicycle Thieves (1948) in exposing poverty and class divide as the main cause of criminality, due to the ill education and the hopelessness of the young. Although, out of nowhere, comes a surrealistic dream sequence so beautiful, and so haunting, that you know you're watching Bunuel, and his artistic creativity seems to bulge from the screen. Best known for his mocking of the upper-classes (the bourgeois were clearly as fascinating to Bunuel as they were repugnant), here he stays in the slums, promoting as much sympathy for its filthy lead characters as hatred.

Jaibo is a true monster, raised without parents, he bullies his way through life, grasping any opportunity that presents itself (he even manages to seduce Pedro's lonely and overworked mother, and rob a legless man). It is Pedro who is the beating heart of the film, especially when he leaves home and we witness the state of the lower- classes from his eyes and how they are viewed (in one powerful sequence, an upper class man obviously propositions him for sex, but we only see their exchange, as we watch them through a window). Bunuel then manages to deliver not one, but two sensational endings, that manage to move and shock as much as the famous and upsetting climax to Bicycle Thieves. Bunuel would go to France to create his greatest works, but Los Olvidados displays many of the attributes that made Bunuel one of the most important directors in the history of film, as well as being a great film in its own right.

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