Los olvidados (1950)
(The Young and the Damned)
Country: MEX
Technical: bw 85m
Director: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo, Estela Inda, Miguel Inclán, Alma Delia Fuentes
Synopsis:
In the slums of Mexico City, children are either neglected or abandoned to their own devices. The return of one to his former street gang, after a spell in prison, only hastens the process of delinquency for the others.
Review:
Buñuel punctuated his conventional Mexican career with this slice of neo-realism, though you will find none of De Sica-Zavattini's uplifting faith in human nature here. A mother renounces the care of her child, whose father she cannot remember, to focus on three other mewling infants, no doubt conceived in the same way, and sleeps with his delinquent 'friend'; a father abandons his son on a rare visit to the big city; a blind beggar takes him in but mistreats him and attempts to seduce a pubescent girl. The governor of the reformatory/farm is the only positive adult portrayal, and he is left disillusioned. Meanwhile, Buñuel paints a strikingly detailed picture of the individual lives of these assorted children, all of whom are somewhere along the spectrum between trying to turn an honest dollar and cynically inflicting the same cruelty they have themselves endured on others. The beating of a cockerel with a stick acquires totemic significance as it is echoes and is then reflected later on in the film; there is carnality a-plenty here, but no representation of faith. Pedro's mother (Inda) is the closest we come to a maternal figure, and she is more Mary Magdalene than la santa virgen. A key film of the post-war, to be viewed alongside Bicycle Thieves and Cairo Station.
(The Young and the Damned)
Country: MEX
Technical: bw 85m
Director: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo, Estela Inda, Miguel Inclán, Alma Delia Fuentes
Synopsis:
In the slums of Mexico City, children are either neglected or abandoned to their own devices. The return of one to his former street gang, after a spell in prison, only hastens the process of delinquency for the others.
Review:
Buñuel punctuated his conventional Mexican career with this slice of neo-realism, though you will find none of De Sica-Zavattini's uplifting faith in human nature here. A mother renounces the care of her child, whose father she cannot remember, to focus on three other mewling infants, no doubt conceived in the same way, and sleeps with his delinquent 'friend'; a father abandons his son on a rare visit to the big city; a blind beggar takes him in but mistreats him and attempts to seduce a pubescent girl. The governor of the reformatory/farm is the only positive adult portrayal, and he is left disillusioned. Meanwhile, Buñuel paints a strikingly detailed picture of the individual lives of these assorted children, all of whom are somewhere along the spectrum between trying to turn an honest dollar and cynically inflicting the same cruelty they have themselves endured on others. The beating of a cockerel with a stick acquires totemic significance as it is echoes and is then reflected later on in the film; there is carnality a-plenty here, but no representation of faith. Pedro's mother (Inda) is the closest we come to a maternal figure, and she is more Mary Magdalene than la santa virgen. A key film of the post-war, to be viewed alongside Bicycle Thieves and Cairo Station.
(The Young and the Damned)
Country: MEX
Technical: bw 85m
Director: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo, Estela Inda, Miguel Inclán, Alma Delia Fuentes
Synopsis:
In the slums of Mexico City, children are either neglected or abandoned to their own devices. The return of one to his former street gang, after a spell in prison, only hastens the process of delinquency for the others.
Review:
Buñuel punctuated his conventional Mexican career with this slice of neo-realism, though you will find none of De Sica-Zavattini's uplifting faith in human nature here. A mother renounces the care of her child, whose father she cannot remember, to focus on three other mewling infants, no doubt conceived in the same way, and sleeps with his delinquent 'friend'; a father abandons his son on a rare visit to the big city; a blind beggar takes him in but mistreats him and attempts to seduce a pubescent girl. The governor of the reformatory/farm is the only positive adult portrayal, and he is left disillusioned. Meanwhile, Buñuel paints a strikingly detailed picture of the individual lives of these assorted children, all of whom are somewhere along the spectrum between trying to turn an honest dollar and cynically inflicting the same cruelty they have themselves endured on others. The beating of a cockerel with a stick acquires totemic significance as it is echoes and is then reflected later on in the film; there is carnality a-plenty here, but no representation of faith. Pedro's mother (Inda) is the closest we come to a maternal figure, and she is more Mary Magdalene than la santa virgen. A key film of the post-war, to be viewed alongside Bicycle Thieves and Cairo Station.