Director: Luis Bunuel; Screenplay: Luis Bunuel, Luis Alcoriza; Cinematography: Gabriel Figureroa; Cast: Alfonso Mejia, Roberto Cobo, Estela Inda and Miguel Inclan
Los Olvidados (original title)
Los Olvidados (original title)
A story of young boys who live in the crime filled streets of Mexico City, trying to overcome the poverty, starvation and the dangers. They live their lives without knowing what the next day will bring.The boys were gathered into a group, lead by El Jaibo who had recently escaped prison. He had a big influence over the others, constantly driving them towards a more violent lifestyle. And they let him, because they really didn't know anything else. It was a kill or be killed world for them.
It wasn't hard to understand the actions of Pedro and El Jaibo because they were affected by the hardship of their lives.The world they lived in offered no other way or means to get by. Stealing and looting was what the boys did best. There were no laws for them and they dealt with those, who rat them out, in their own way. Pedro was the one with a family of four to feed and he had a lot to carry on his small shoulders. He was constantly caught up in shady things, but it wasn't always his choice nor was it his intention to hurt others. The outside influence from the other boys and the street life molded his views on life and left no room for a conscience. He hung on to El Jaibo and the rest of the gang, because they were ultimately his only family. His mother had mixed feelings towards him, as she was young and clueless at the time Pedro was born. Pedro didn't have his mother's love and so he chose to live on the streets. These boys were corrupted and their morals were destroyed by the slum life. Everything reeked with violence, the kids were abandoned, forgotten by the rest. It was naive of me to hope for a happy ending for both El Jaibo and Pedro, but in a way they didn't have an ending nor a proper beginning from the start. They were meant to fall down from the start.
It wasn't hard to understand the actions of Pedro and El Jaibo because they were affected by the hardship of their lives.The world they lived in offered no other way or means to get by. Stealing and looting was what the boys did best. There were no laws for them and they dealt with those, who rat them out, in their own way. Pedro was the one with a family of four to feed and he had a lot to carry on his small shoulders. He was constantly caught up in shady things, but it wasn't always his choice nor was it his intention to hurt others. The outside influence from the other boys and the street life molded his views on life and left no room for a conscience. He hung on to El Jaibo and the rest of the gang, because they were ultimately his only family. His mother had mixed feelings towards him, as she was young and clueless at the time Pedro was born. Pedro didn't have his mother's love and so he chose to live on the streets. These boys were corrupted and their morals were destroyed by the slum life. Everything reeked with violence, the kids were abandoned, forgotten by the rest. It was naive of me to hope for a happy ending for both El Jaibo and Pedro, but in a way they didn't have an ending nor a proper beginning from the start. They were meant to fall down from the start.
Los Olvidados was a very realistic movie. You could say it was symbolic in some ways. The scene where a girl poured milk down her legs or the way El Jaibo lusted over Pedro's mother. These were just a few of the unforgettable sequences in the movie. Los Olvidados is definitely a masterpiece from Buñuel. The way he portrays human nature so vividly, not showing them one-sided or just black and white, but disturbing and without remorse. He tested the boundaries with his boldness, dared the viewers with the throat gripping rawness. He amazingly combined artistic invention, social problems and the daring eroticism, making the movie a perfect whole. Buñuel added his own fetishes to Los Olvidados and with that he made a movie which got under my skin by simply being so real and down to earth, showing the cruelty of the world and the somewhat sick human nature.
Written by Frank
Links: IMDb
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