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.

tedg Is it enough that a film seem "real?"That's the pitch here, and in so many films. This one even starts with the filmmaker speaking to us before the film proper, telling us about the horrible situation and literally showing us the lead child actor in his "regular" life of squalor. We know also from the publicity that the other children are "real," though presumably all of the adults are actors. This film is set up to impress on this score. The situations are brutal and fully believable. The kids are effective. The scenes seem genuine.But its just bad film, bad drama, bad storytelling except for two bits — unless you count the value of realism. That's because it has no narrative structure. Yes, we see the child harden, and why, but is that enough? Not for me. It takes more than the real to make a story, I think.I will recommend two scenes to you. They both feature Marília Pêra, who we saw as effective in "Central Station." She plays a prostitute who enlists the children to mug her johns. One scene has her after a successful heist in the woods with the children, seducing the oldest, who we know is in a relationship with one of the boys. This scene works amazingly well, lighted by the headlights of the stolen car, animated by her dancing body. The words tell us that she was a sexy go-go dancer who was fired, but the motions tell us that and so much more. Later, when they get back to her place and we see the two making love with the other children watching on the bed, she captures another mark. Wheels turn and tragedy strikes, setting up the penultimate scene which may be one of the most memorable in cinema.People are dead, and the whore and child are left on the bed. Her legs are askew displaying her crotch to us and the child. They are reaching to each other, he simply staring and she filling the room with loneliness. The camera focus changes from his blank face to her vagina, which we have seen her use seductively before — in fact in every case. She approaches the boy.He in turn is drawn to her breast which he cuddles to and suckles which she accepts. But over a few moments you can see her confusion breaking her. A life of sexual twisting is visited on that contact and she breaks. The camera decides to show the boy, now lost in the last scene that follows. But it is the woman whose loss we know.These two scenes demonstrate how much greater reality a talented actress can give us, more surely than the real thing.See it for those two scenes.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

shneur This is a difficult movie to watch, and would have been even more difficult had I known then that the actor playing the protagonist was in fact killed in his home by police at age 19. Pixote (PeeWee) is a street kid in Sao Paulo who is caught in a roundup triggered by a murder in which he had no involvement. He is committed to a juvenile prison where he witnesses brutality and exploitation that ordinary citizens try very hard to believe doesn't exist. When finally he escapes, he and three comrades survive by the only means they know, which is crime. What makes the film so heart-rending is that both Pixote and the actor portraying him clearly do not wish to be the characters life circumstances have made them. Pixote tries to trust and to love and to bond, but there simply is no room in his world for the gentle side of human nature. One is left at the end wanting desperately to do something for the Pixotes of the world, but what? Building more children's's prisons with higher walls surely is not the answer...

lambiepie-2 For me, this is another one of those films that I got to see off of the Los Angeles based "Z" Channel when it was in service. And it was another one of those movies that I saw when I was young...and learned that there was a world out there...one I did not want to accept.Moving to Los Angeles and getting to watch international cinema became quite the guilty pleasure hobby of mine and to date, no premiere channel programming has matched the "Z" Channel in its showing of international films. The three international films that stuck in my young head were "Spetters", "Beau Pere" and of course this one, "Pixote".This was the most shocking and saddest movie I ever witnessed in my life. This was also one of the first movies that made me understand that there IS a difference in cinema: to entertain, and to inform. Let me be honest..growing up in a small town on the east coast, I had no idea anything like this -- to this extent -- existed. All I knew from South America was brochures of fabulous Brazillian vacations and that Columbia had a lot of drug trafficking.Then comes a film like Pixote. Sad. Disturbing. Unflinching. Scary. You're watching: Children. Those that need shelter, love, understanding and all these get are a way to survive day after day through drugs, sex, robbing, stealing, sleeping on the streets and in sadistic group homes etc. Their survival is hard to watch with other street children, prostitutes, etc., and you begin to wonder HOW can things like this be allowed to happen in this world.Pixote is not a film for entertainment, it is a film of information. It shows shocking and disturbing images - but it shows life for these daily street children.