Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco (1981) DVD9, DVD5 Widescreen and Fullscreen versions
on April 1st, 2016 at 02:27
A grim, disturbing and engrossing portrait of children living in poverty on the streets of Sao Paulo, PIXOTE is one of the most powerful films ever made on the subject of urban degradation.
The story focuses on Pixote (da Silva), a boy abandoned by his parents, who becomes a streetwise pimp and eventually a murderer by the age of 10. The film follows the devastating adventures of a young boy who is sent to a "reformatory" — which, naturally, does anything but "reform" him. Instead he is immediately subjected to a world of cruel guards, rape, drugs, and false accusations. But when Pixote and his buddies manage to escape, life on the streets of Brazil is little better. Every comfort Pixote finds — whether sniffing glue out of a bottle, listening to music in a stolen car, or snuggling with an older prostitute — is short-lived, and ultimately just contributes to his descent down a slippery slope.
The film depicts a life of unrelenting squalor and hopelessness, and director Babenco does not flinch from confronting his audience with the most grisly details of his subjects' lives: violence in the reformatory; an aborted baby in a bucket in a bathroom; the young hero suddenly reverting to infancy, suckling at the breast of a momentarily sympathetic prostitute.
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