Los Olvidados (1952)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Los Olvidados (1952) – L. Buñuel

Brutal, exceedingly dark "neorealist" look at kids in the slums of Mexico City in the 1950s. By Luis Buñuel, so there is a surrealistic dream sequence (and a blind man rubbing a pigeon on a sick woman). Even though I accept the take home message that poverty may breed social ills, I still hated "Jaibo" and his cruel ways. Buñuel serves up such an unsentimental, unflinching, and yes ugly look at the problem that it seems hard not to despair about the difficulty of solving it.