Los Olvidados. The literal translation of it is "The Forgotten". And yet the English title is The Young and the Damned. More attractive, yes, but definitely not very accurate. Being young and damned supposes challenges indeed, but never the void implied in being Forgotten.
A gang of homeless children turn to robbery,
vandalism and muder to survive in the slums of Mexico City. They act with a courage no one should have, with principles no one should have. They are menaces to each other and to themselves, and they terrorize their entire surroundings.
Los Olvidados is incredibly realistic, it plays almost as a documentary, and it is supported by unbelievable performances by the children. The violence in the film is raw and mortifying, and, initially, it's shocking to see these kids beating crippled beggars on the streets, murdering each other, stealing, and especially speaking about society with real disdain and hate. It is not an optimistic movie as is stated in the beginning; no one here is going to find redemption because of some profound spiritual awakening -that precious time devoted to introspection is unknown to children who already have to use most of their time getting the bare necessities.
The most terrifying thing about Los Olvidados is that the situation here protrayed is far from being corrected anywhere in South America.
Throughout Los Olvidados, Bunuel shows us that their behavior isn't the children's fault. It isn't their parents fault... and so on, until there is no simple answer to the question, who to blame? As always, Bunuel questions the ideas we tend to repeat mecanically over and over again: poor children, their parents never took care of them, never taught them anything. Maybe it's true, but never, ever, that simple. With Bunuel, answers are never shallow.
We also encounter the two sides of legal interference in the case of social issues like homeless children; for once, the State isn't evil, and we can see the decent intentions behind their social reinsertion program, even if it fails.
Even though it's very long and its topic is unconfortable, Los Olvidados never bores. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, it manages not to exaggerate non-fiction to the borders of fantasy or incoherence, and creates an almost real life experience. Since it's Bunuel we're talking about it comes as no surprise that it would be filled with oniric symbollism and one dream sequence. Notice the hens- Bunuel said that to him hens represented the unknown, the dreamland. Los Olvidados works alone and in the context of Bunuel's catalogue because it shows that he actually knew how to make an excellent "conventional" movie, which so many people like to hold against him.
July 14, 2007
Top Critic
