Pixote
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Movie Reviews of Pixote
Movie Review: Amazing look a "street children"
Summary: 4 Stars
This "docu-movie" is unforgettably acted by real Brazilian street kids. I can't even imagine living through what these kids have to endure. Director Hector Babenco does a phenomenal job in painting a, what I can only believe to be a true picture of the hell of being young & homeless in Brazil. I'm going to be honest here and say, I see the asking price for this movie and I find it to be outrageous. You know where I found the movie? The library and guess what, it was FREE for a week. Check there first.Movie Review: Acclaimed social drama isn't for everyone
Summary: 2 Stars
PIXOTE: THE SURVIVAL OF THE WEAKEST
[Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco]
(Brazil - 1981)
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Theatrical soundtrack: Mono
Hector Babenco's third feature provides a harrowing and squalid glimpse into an alien culture beset by an all-consuming poverty. Chronicling the life and crimes of ten-year-old homeless boy Pixote (pronounced 'Pi-chott' or 'Pi-chott-ay', and played with remarkable sincerity by non-professional actor Fernando Ramos da Silva) in the slums of Sao Paulo, it follows him down the path of petty thievery to his brief stay in a reformatory where violence is a way of life, to his eventual escape and descent into murder. The only shafts of light are provided by his friends, fellow outcasts whose attempts to rise above their appalling circumstances are almost inevitably doomed to failure, and by an alcoholic prostitute (the luminous Marilia Pera) who unwittingly precipitates their downfall. In the end, only one of the characters emerges from the debris, returning to the slums where life - such as it is - goes on much the same as before. It isn't a pretty picture, nor can it ever be.
Though depressing and unlikeable, PIXOTE is virtually critic-proof. Based on a novel by Jose Louzeiro, Babenco's film offers an outraged response to the crushing hardships suffered by millions of homeless street kids in Sao Paulo who turn to crime to sustain themselves and are exploited by criminal gangs because of a loophole in Brazilian law which forbids the prosecution of minors. Most scandalous of all are the corrupt police officers who participate in the murder of countless street children every year, treating it as a form of 'pest control'. If nothing else, PIXOTE refuses to flinch from the reality of these terrible circumstances, depicting rape, murder, glue-sniffing and robbery with an uncompromising level of detail.
However, those seeking exploitation are advised to look elsewhere - these events are outlined against a backdrop of misery and ruined aspirations, in a crumbling landscape where even the smallest flicker of hope can be cruelly extinguished at any given moment. Worse still, despite the film's campaigning nature and its international theatrical success, these conditions still exist in Brazil today, and Ramos da Silva - whose social standing mirrored that of the character he played - ultimately succumbed to its worst excesses: Unable to escape the bonds of poverty which prevented him from realizing his dreams, he turned to crime and was murdered in 1987, allegedly by local police. His life and death was subsequently dramatized by director Jose Joffily in WHO KILLED PIXOTE? (1996).
Movie Review: Amateur?
Summary: 1 Stars
Although I have enjoyed many Brazilian films and am a fan of Brazilian culture and life in general, I was quite disappointed in this particular effort.I can dimly grasp why someone might WANT to think of this as a good film but not how anyone actually COULD. Beyond its use of an amateur cast one might also think of it as an exercise in amateur sociology and, seemingly, film-making in general.
To identify it as "Best" or "One of the top ten" of anything, as reviews quoted on the DVD case do, seems absurd.