Artivels Undescribable Perfection

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

bkoganbing When one thinks of the Brazilian cinema it is this film Pixote which comes to mind. Hector Babenco gives us one uncompromising and brutal look at the lives of the street boys in Brazil's largest city Sao Paulo. One only hopes that it is 35 years since Pixote was released and the hope is things have improved for these kids who have to grow up way before their time.The films centers on the title character played by a young actor who himself never made it out of the slums. Babenco used real street kid Fernando Ramos DaSilva as the ten year old Pixote who was killed at the age of 19 in a homicide that still raises questions. One thing this film does show is that Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence didn't make it to Brazil, especially for the young.We see things in Pixote that you would never see in American cinema portrayed even now. Rape in a juvenile detention center is the established norm here, especially when it involves Jorge Juliao, a young cross dressing street kid. When the slightly older Gilberto Moura uses sex to assert authority over Juliao it's both frightening and touching. Poor Juliao has one rotten opinion of his own self worth from his experience. One gets the impression that home wasn't all that much better. But these things were being shown way before America even knew there were transgender issues. Juliao even more than DaSilva is who you remember from Pixote.35 years later Pixote is a powerful and disturbing film.

buzios 'Pixote - A Lei do Mais Fraco' was made in 1981 but the subject matter is just as relevant today. 'Pixote...' (pronounced peeshot) is very well known in Brazil but unfortunately less known elsewhere. I had heard of the film some time ago but when I finally saw it I was overwhelmed.The film is directed by Hector Babenco, probably best known to English speaking audiences for 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' which was far from his best work (i.e this). The subtitle of the film literally means 'the law of the weakest' and here Babenco presents us with a harrowing and all too realistic portrayal of the life of a Brazilian street child. Pixote (Fernando Ramos Da Silva) is a 10 year old boy who is taken from the streets of Sao Paulo by the police along with a group of other boys. A judge has been murdered and the street children are always picked up as suspects. However, Brazilian law states that nobody under 18 can be tried as an adult so those accused are simply thrown into reformatories as punishment without trial.The hell that is the reformatory forces Pixote to become tougher just to survive. On his first night he witnesses the rape of another boy. His hair is shaved off and he smokes dope for solace with his friend Fumaca. In the reformatory the boys watch violent TV shows and act out planned robberies. Another boy, the homosexual Lilica, is accused of the judge's murder but refuses to admit to a crime he did not commit. A group of the boys are forced to attend a staged identification parade and Fumaca is accused of the murder. Fumaca is returned to the dormitory later having been so badly beaten that he dies of his injuries. His body is dumped on a rubbish tip. The police then blame Fumaca's murder on another boy who is also beaten to death. This boy was Lilica's lover and in his despair and anger Lilica leads a rebellion and the dormitory is set on fire. Lilica is then accused of his lover's murder and attempts to kill himself by cutting his wrists.Lilica, Pixote and two other boys, Dito and Chico, then escape from the reformatory and return to the streets and to petty crime. They soon become involved in selling cocaine. Lilica and Dito fall in love. The group then take the train to Rio to visit drug dealer Debora who double crosses them and refuses to pay what they are owed. Pixote and Chico later meet Debora by chance and in the resulting fracas Chico is killed and Pixote fatally stabs Debora. The 3 remaining boys then meet up with a prostitute called Sueli and pimp for her so that they can then rob her customers. Dito and Sueli grow close and Pixote treats Sueli as a mother figure. Lilica becomes jealous and leaves. In a clumsily bungled robbery attempt Pixote murders one of Sueli's customers.The film is more about the relationships between the boys and the suffering they go through than it is about crime and violence. However, Babenco does not spare his audience any of the grim reality of their lives. Nothing is glamorised. The drugs scenes and violence are very real. The boys are not portrayed as heroes, just sad survivors. Pixote is not bad , just someone trying to survive through daily doses of death and horror. The police are corrupt and evil. The drug dealers and prostitutes are deceitful and vicious. Ultimately though, what makes this film truly great is Babenco's gritty direction. There's no fancy camera angles or atmospheric music. Everything is left to the actors who are filmed in a chilling matter-of-fact style which makes you feel almost as if you were there watching the horror of the boys lives first hand.The acting is astounding, particularly when you consider that many of the cast had no previous acting experience. All of the child actors in Pixote are from Brazil's streets, coaxed into the film by Babenco in order to call attention to their living conditions. Jorge Juliao as Lilica is excellent and plays the part with a sensitivity that makes it clear that he just wants to be loved no matter how he does it. And as for Fernando Ramos Da Silva as Pixote, with his sad eyed, distant resilience, you could not expect more from a child actor playing such a demanding and gruelling part. You feel that Da Silva actually 'is' Pixote and he may well have been. What makes Da Silva's portrayal of Pixote even more poignant to me is that after completing the film he went on to sink back into poverty and crime, and at age 19 was shot dead by police who claimed he was involved in a robbery. His life became the subject of the 1996 film 'Who Killed Pixote?', which showed that despite the outcry created by Pixote, Brazil had done little to alleviate the conditions portrayed.In summary, this film is a magnificent and moving study of the dark and dangerous lives of Brazil's street children. However, if you are easily upset or shocked then give it a miss. There are painfully realistic portrayals of violence and drug abuse. There are also scenes of a strong sexual nature. But to me what was hardest to stomach was the suffering and abuse that these children endured. Nobody deserves this sort of life. Furthermore, I know that this really goes on in Brazil (and to be fair, probably many other countries) and that is one of the sadnesses of this otherwise beautiful country. Still, this film is not really about Brazil. It is about poverty, resilience, desperation, the search for love, and man's inhumanity to man (or in this case child).I cannot recommend this film highly enough - but be prepared for an uncomfortable ride and don't let the kids watch.

wdtchc Trust the excellent and accurate Junagadh75 review! This film is compelling and moving in that roughest, most brutally beautiful film-masterpiece "way". File under UNFORGETTABLE STRONG MEAT. Or FILMS THAT HOWL AT THE MOON. Pixote gets into your nervous system and elevates you despite the pain on the screen. Here's an unrelated list of films that did the same thing for me, i.e. "engaged, destroyed, transformed,inspired, resonated... this category transcends nerdy film top ten lists that seek film perfection. "A Woman Under the Influence" , "Wiseblood", "Wages of Fear" "Saint Jack" "Funny Bones" "Out of the Blue".

Anakitsuke Hidetora "Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco" deals with what is perhaps the greatest of all Brazilian themes: poverty. And along with poverty the other unnatural feelings and actions it brings; prostitution, violence, crime, rape and murder.Brazil is the country of paradoxes, and its social problems are present everywhere. The difference between the rich and the poor; the beautiful and the ugly; happiness and the most profound human decay."Pixote" is one of the films that dare to touch and open these so painful wounds, and does it without the slightest glimmer of hope, in an honest portrayal of a country that, like Pixote himself, is already lost.