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Luis Buñuel's visceral depiction of life in Mexico's slums stunned audiences at the Cannes Film Festival in 1951, winning Best Director and relaunching the filmmaker's career after a twenty-year hiatus. The film tells the story of an unloved teenage boy, Pedro, who fights to turn his life around against the circumstances of extreme poverty and the sinister influence of an older boy, El Jaibo. Unflinchingly honest, at times surreal and ultimately heartbreaking, Los Olividados is a transcendently original, game-changing piece of cinema from one of the medium's true masters. Contains English and French subtitles.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By A. S. Potts
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
It's several decades since I last saw Buñuel's Los Olvidados , a powerful, unsentimental and unflinching look at the lives of a gang of slum children set in Mexico City. After viewing this DVD it's clear that what I had retained in my memory was a general impression of its style and the visceral emotional impact it made on me many years ago, but I had remembered very little of the actual content. Even the stunning image of the last shot that forms the desperately bleak ending I had slightly misremembered.
So, the result of all this is that to all intents and purposes it was like seeing it for the first time. And the film is a revelation. It begins as if we are about to see a documentary including a caption that states that everything we are about to see is fact, but in a Buñuelsque inversion the film thereafter is clearly a constructed narrative drama. It's equally clear he intended that we should interpret what we see as real events, not as fictional invention and that this is what happens to such people and that it isn't very pleasant. The idea of the factual nature of the narrative is underscored by the apparently Italian neorealist inspired cinematography, although this also is subverted by Buñuel's strange obsession with chickens and by the inclusion of the most astonishing and accomplished 'dream sequence' that is a masterpiece in its own right.
Although the film intertwines several story-lines the main action focuses on the brutal gang leader Jaibo and his fatal influence over the younger Pedro. Buñuel is unequivocal, the world that these slum dwellers inhabit is a cesspit and it will remain so as long as they remain poor.... Read more ›
So, the result of all this is that to all intents and purposes it was like seeing it for the first time. And the film is a revelation. It begins as if we are about to see a documentary including a caption that states that everything we are about to see is fact, but in a Buñuelsque inversion the film thereafter is clearly a constructed narrative drama. It's equally clear he intended that we should interpret what we see as real events, not as fictional invention and that this is what happens to such people and that it isn't very pleasant. The idea of the factual nature of the narrative is underscored by the apparently Italian neorealist inspired cinematography, although this also is subverted by Buñuel's strange obsession with chickens and by the inclusion of the most astonishing and accomplished 'dream sequence' that is a masterpiece in its own right.
Although the film intertwines several story-lines the main action focuses on the brutal gang leader Jaibo and his fatal influence over the younger Pedro. Buñuel is unequivocal, the world that these slum dwellers inhabit is a cesspit and it will remain so as long as they remain poor.... Read more ›
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Luis Bunuel classic from 1950. It is a tale of savage acts committed by impoverished youths inMexico City. It is a film that has been kept fresh by its spirit and its style. Far from being puppets in a sermon on poverty, the characters are vivid creatures whose fierce desires are the focus of Bunuel's attention.
In his unique storytelling, he not only finds forceful images in the dramas reality, but adds a masterful dream sequence.
Genius.
In his unique storytelling, he not only finds forceful images in the dramas reality, but adds a masterful dream sequence.
Genius.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By rob crawford
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:DVD
This is a deeply affecting film about the poor in Mexico City, in I believe about 1950. The principal protagonist is a young boy in a large disordered family, whose promiscuous mother oversees alone; he is unloved, but struggling to do the right thing and full of rage. One of his friends is an evil young criminal, whom a gang of kids looks up to as someone who controls his own fate. He is one of those destructive personalities that, if you have the misfortune to encounter intimately, will leave his mark. There are many other characters, all finely drawn and relentless in their brutal realism, including an abandoned peasant boy and his abusive caretaker, a blind musician full of hate.
The young boy is seeking to find what to do with his life and even gets some help from an institution run by a good man, who gets him a job as an apprentice in a silver smith's shop. It is a way ahead for the boy and he takes to it with great energy and hope. Of course, things don't work out the way they should, in what can only be called a catastrophe that no one will ever know about. I don't want to reveal the plot, of course, but Bunuel serves up an awful tragedy with total honesty and an utter lack of sentimentality. I almost wept at the end.
Bunuel adds many subtle twists to the film, such as the criminal's affair with a woman, perhaps a passing on of his bad genes. There is also the blind musician, exulting in death, a laugh that entered my nightmares when I first saw the film 30 years ago. The images are unforgettable, such as the dream of the boy with his mother, when she is offering him meat only to have the criminal emerge from under the bed to take it.
REcommended with enthusiasm.... Read more ›
The young boy is seeking to find what to do with his life and even gets some help from an institution run by a good man, who gets him a job as an apprentice in a silver smith's shop. It is a way ahead for the boy and he takes to it with great energy and hope. Of course, things don't work out the way they should, in what can only be called a catastrophe that no one will ever know about. I don't want to reveal the plot, of course, but Bunuel serves up an awful tragedy with total honesty and an utter lack of sentimentality. I almost wept at the end.
Bunuel adds many subtle twists to the film, such as the criminal's affair with a woman, perhaps a passing on of his bad genes. There is also the blind musician, exulting in death, a laugh that entered my nightmares when I first saw the film 30 years ago. The images are unforgettable, such as the dream of the boy with his mother, when she is offering him meat only to have the criminal emerge from under the bed to take it.
REcommended with enthusiasm.... Read more ›
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By schumann_bg
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:DVD
Having recently seen The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie again and found it a bit disappointing, I was half-expecting to have the same reaction here, but in fact I think Los Olvidados has dated far less. By being essentially realistic it shows us how dreadful poverty was (and is) and is neither sentimental nor moralising. As such it is better, for me, than a film like Bicycle Thieves, in that you don't feel anything is being laid on thick to get an effect. The boys' behaviour in the film is often abject and hard to watch, but even a fairly nasty character is given a poetic fantasy sequence as he lies dying, which seems to tie in with the idea of mercy being infinite. It is strangely moving. The main character (Pedro) evokes the profoundest sympathy without anything being forced - there is an incredible moment where he is scuppered with the best intentions, revealing what a trap poverty really is. The handling of the plot is solid and yet subtle in that it is easy to follow while being very revealing of character in so many details. It also works very well visually, with two startling dream sequences. This is one of the things that is particularly impressive, as it blends this into an almost documentary feel at times to create a highly vivid style of cinema, presenting the harshness of the lives it shows and offering some poetic transcendence without betraying it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Piece of World Cinema
This is a true classic, made by visionary film maker, Luis Buñuel, who started in 1929 and sadly passed in 1983. Read more
Published 9 days ago by Tommy D
5.0 out of 5 stars
great classic film
this is a film with the greatest direction and the greatest storytelling. The ending is way ahead of its time.
Published 4 months ago by Pat Garrett
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review of Los Olivados
Excellent film by the outstanding Spanish film director Luis Bunuel of the Franco years in Spain with scenes of gritty realism.
Published 5 months ago by Ronald Hertzman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Los Olvidados
Boy, what a film !!! From the opening scenes to the horrific and very hurriedly concluded last scene of the father who dumps his completely innocent and certainly non violent boy... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Artemistica
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