Los Olvidados (1950)
Directed by Luis Buñuel

Film Review

After a fairly uninspired period of filmmaking in Mexico in the 1940s, the Spanish-born director Luis Buñuel won instant international acclaim with this extraordinarily grim portrayal of the lost children of Mexico.  Made in the style of the Italian neo-realists, with non-professional actors and natural locations, the film is uncompromisingly brutal and pessimistic in its depiction of a group of hopeless wretches who are destined to live and die in squalid obscurity, deprived of even the most basic benefits afforded by modern society.

Like Buñuel's earlier Spanish film Las Hurdes (1933), which offers a similarly depressing portrait of individuals locked in crushing poverty, Los Olvidados is not an easy film to watch but it demands our attention.  The sickening cruelty displayed by the film's supposed heroes; as they torment and destroy without conscience is matched by the equally grotesque society which has bred them.  Yet Buñuel's unique cinematic style, embroidered with poetry and cynicism, makes this a film that is totally compelling, in spite of its horrific content.

Most memorable is the dream sequence in which the boy Pedro imagines his insensitive mother to be the Madonna.  The dream is a subconscious expression of Pedro's guilt and desires and ends as a nightmare in which his transfigured mother feeds rotting meat to his so-called friend Jaibo.  Only a genius of Buñuel's standing could have got away with this stroke of artistic brilliance, grafting an incredible piece of surrealist art onto a gritty social realist drama.  Not only is this sequence stunningly filmed, it is laden with many layers of symbolism and serves as a coda for the entire film.

Predictably, Los Olvidados created an uproar when it was released in Mexico.  The labour unions and hyper-nationalistic press condemned the film for dishonouring their country.  The jury at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival took a different view and rewarded Buñuel with the Best Director Award.  In an age when the gulf between the world's wealthiest and the poorest continues to increase, the film still has an immense social relevance.  It doesn't merely prick the conscience.  To quote the critic André Bazin, "[It] lashes the mind like a red-hot iron."

Film Synopsis

Behind every beautiful city are poor children...  In the slums of Mexico City, a gang of unruly youths take out their frustrations on those less fortunate than themselves.  They rob from a blind man, they attack a cripple, they kill animals...  The gang leader is El Jaibo, a vicious teenager who has just been released from prison.  He sates his revenge by beating another young man to death, witnessed by his young acolyte Pedro.  In a vain attempt to win his mother's affection, Pedro tries to make an honest life and starts an apprenticeship.  But, thanks to Jaibo's intervention, Pedro ends up being arrested for theft.   Taken to a centre for rehabilitating child criminals, Pedro has one last chance to start a new life.  Unfortunately, Fate - aided once more by Jaibo - has other ideas...