This is a gritty film about a group of street urchins in the slums of Mexico City. The main characters are Pedro, a young boy who wants to be good, and Jaibo, a real louse who's just broken out of reform school and come back to lead the gang.
These aren't the lovable adventures of Billy Halop and Huntz Hall. Pat O'Brien isn't around to shepherd the boys back into the good graces of society. This is Luis Buñuel's stark look at the lives of throwaway children and it isn't pretty.
Jaibo is out for revenge when he shows up. Thinking Julian was responsible for sending him to jail, Jaibo sets up an ambush and kills him. Pedro is there when it happens and Jaibo tells him to keep his mouth shut or the same will happen to him.
Pedro lives with his mother, but she resents him for his father having gotten her pregnant when she was just 14, so she is cold towards Pedro and pushes him away. Pedro wanders the streets sleeping and eating as catch can. He runs into a young country boy, Ojitos, whose father has abandoned him in the marketplace - one less mouth to feed as the blind man says. They find a place to sleep that night, the barn of a friend's family.
When Pedro gets a job to help out with expenses, Jaibo shows up and steals a knife from the shop. Pedro takes the blame and his mother turns him in to the police. He's sent away to a state run farm.
Jaibo thinks Pedro's gonna rat on him for Julian's murder so he shows up and steals some money the farm director has given him to test his honesty. Jaibo flees back to the city and Pedro follows him. A fight ensues and Pedro blurts out in front of a crowd that it was Jaibo who killed the other boy.
When Pedro returns to the barn to sleep that night, he runs into Jaibo and is killed by him. Meche, the young girl, rushes in and finds Pedro's body. Her grandfather tells her they don't want any trouble so they load the body onto a donkey and take it to a garbage dump outside town. Jaibo is gunned down by the police moments later when he returns to his own hiding place.
I told you this wasn't angels with dirty faces.
The realism in this film is right there, completely without sentiment. When Pedro's mother signs the papers to send him away, she tells the police officer she doesn't care to see her son before he goes off. When Pedro is wandering the streets, an older man comes up to him and offers him money for sex. Julian's father is a drunk who staggers through the streets with a knife looking for his son's killer. The blind man abuses Ojitos and throws him out. When Jaibo is shot, the blind man screams they should all end that way, be killed before they're even born.
The direction of this film is as sparse as the story it tells. It's shot in black and white and there are no fancy backdrops, just the streets of a poor Mexico City neighborhood. Yet it is one of the richest films I know of - the characters are haunting and will stay with you long after the movie is over. The end scene when Meche and her grandfather toss Pedro's body down the hillside through a pile of garbage is one of the most memorable images from any film I've ever watched.
These aren't the lovable adventures of Billy Halop and Huntz Hall. Pat O'Brien isn't around to shepherd the boys back into the good graces of society. This is Luis Buñuel's stark look at the lives of throwaway children and it isn't pretty.
Jaibo is out for revenge when he shows up. Thinking Julian was responsible for sending him to jail, Jaibo sets up an ambush and kills him. Pedro is there when it happens and Jaibo tells him to keep his mouth shut or the same will happen to him.
Pedro lives with his mother, but she resents him for his father having gotten her pregnant when she was just 14, so she is cold towards Pedro and pushes him away. Pedro wanders the streets sleeping and eating as catch can. He runs into a young country boy, Ojitos, whose father has abandoned him in the marketplace - one less mouth to feed as the blind man says. They find a place to sleep that night, the barn of a friend's family.
When Pedro gets a job to help out with expenses, Jaibo shows up and steals a knife from the shop. Pedro takes the blame and his mother turns him in to the police. He's sent away to a state run farm.
Jaibo thinks Pedro's gonna rat on him for Julian's murder so he shows up and steals some money the farm director has given him to test his honesty. Jaibo flees back to the city and Pedro follows him. A fight ensues and Pedro blurts out in front of a crowd that it was Jaibo who killed the other boy.
When Pedro returns to the barn to sleep that night, he runs into Jaibo and is killed by him. Meche, the young girl, rushes in and finds Pedro's body. Her grandfather tells her they don't want any trouble so they load the body onto a donkey and take it to a garbage dump outside town. Jaibo is gunned down by the police moments later when he returns to his own hiding place.
I told you this wasn't angels with dirty faces.
The realism in this film is right there, completely without sentiment. When Pedro's mother signs the papers to send him away, she tells the police officer she doesn't care to see her son before he goes off. When Pedro is wandering the streets, an older man comes up to him and offers him money for sex. Julian's father is a drunk who staggers through the streets with a knife looking for his son's killer. The blind man abuses Ojitos and throws him out. When Jaibo is shot, the blind man screams they should all end that way, be killed before they're even born.
The direction of this film is as sparse as the story it tells. It's shot in black and white and there are no fancy backdrops, just the streets of a poor Mexico City neighborhood. Yet it is one of the richest films I know of - the characters are haunting and will stay with you long after the movie is over. The end scene when Meche and her grandfather toss Pedro's body down the hillside through a pile of garbage is one of the most memorable images from any film I've ever watched.