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 Young
and the Damned, The (1950)
Director:
Luis Buñuel
Stars: Alfonso Meijia, Roberto Cobo, Jesus Navarro, Miguel Inclan
Release Company:
Connoisseur Video
MPAA Rating: NR
Luis
Bunuel Store
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After directing the financially
rewarding but artistically banal El
Gran Calavera (The
Great Madcap), Luis
Buñuel set out to create a "real"
film about the abandoned and unloved slum children
of Mexico. The result was a gritty true masterpiece
that ranks with Victorio de Sirca's best work--Los
Olvidados (The Young and
the Damned). To bring incredible realism
to the film, Buñuel
conducted personal research in Mexico City's slum
areas:
"I
wore my most threadbare clothes; I watched, I listened,
I asked questions. Eventually, I came to know these
people, and much of what I was went unchanged into
the film."
Buñuel's
attention to detail in recording the hopelessness
of the slum children works with devastating perfection;
I'm hard pressed to remember another time that I have
been so moved to tears and been so shaken by a film.
By the denouement I was reduced to a blubbering "Geezus"
reaction and haunted with unforgettable images. (Note:
DVD copies invariably include the alternative and
far less effective Hollywood ending as an extra feature)
The way Buñuel
nihilistically conquers without stooping to sentiment
is especially striking--the opening warning about
providing no easy solutions in the film is way understated.
Buñuel declares that these solutions are best
left to "the hands of the progressive forces of our
times," but the same situation remains over fifty
years since the film's release. The intense drama
is not for those who demand a "feel good"
film, but Los Olvidados
leaves indelible marks on those who seek provocative
fare. I've associated with people who live in so-called
poverty-stricken areas in rural Georgia and on the
Navajo reservation, but Buñuel's
film makes those places look like Disneyland.
As expected, the controversial film was harshly received
when first released; no one with a vested interest
in Mexican tourism would ever approve of such a film,
for instance. In fact, one of the writing collaborators,
Pedro de Urdemalas, was so disgusted that he refused
to have his name listed in the credits, a hairdresser
on the set quit after a controversial scene with a
rejecting Mexican mother, and one film technician
asked Buñuel
why he didn't "make a real
Mexican movie instead of this pathetic one."
The public reaction was even worse, as Buñuel
reports:
"Many
organizations, including labor unions, demanded
my expulsion, and the press was nothing short of
vitriolic in its criticism. Such spectators as there
were left the theatre looking as if they'd just
been to a funeral. After the private screening,
Lupe, the wife of Diego Rivera, refused to speak
to me, while Berta, Leon Felipe's wife, attacked
me nails first, shouting that it was a crime against
the state."
What the upper-class Mexicans object to in Los
Olvidados does nothing to destroy its
credibility, and Buñuel
even indicates the universality of the subject in
the opening when a narrative points out that all large
metro areas--specifically naming New York City, London,
and Paris all have impoverished subcultures that breed
juvenile delinquency and hopelessness. In this illustration,
Mexico City provides the setting in which we meet
hardcore reform school escapee Jaibo (Roberto Cobo)
and his band of street urchins--among them good hearted
but emotionally abandoned Pedro (Alfonso Mejía).
Sociopathic Jaibo is beyond redemption--he bullies
his gang into compliance, calling non-smokers "pansies,"
and promises to supply them with the wealth of the
streets from the tricks he's learned in reform school.
Initially that means stealing pesos from a helpless
blind beggar Don Carmelo (Miguel Inclán) and
seizing cigarettes from a legless man after rolling
his cart down the street.
Buñuel
represents innocence with two children who seek goat
milk nourishment; another abandoned boy called Big
Eyes (Jesus Navarro) suckles from the goat directly
while Meche (Alma Delia Fuentes) washes her arms and
legs in the milk to preserve her beauty. Another youth,
Julien (Javier Amézcua) expresses hope for
the future by rejecting the street life and working
for a living, but by far the most interesting character
is Pedro. He lives on the edge, desiring nothing more
than to get enough to eat and to please his rejecting
mother. Despite his survival instincts, he rejects
a lucrative homosexual proposition and will eventually
stand up to Jaibo over a moral issue. His evocative
eyes and naturalness deservedly earn the 1951 Ariel
Award (Mexican equivalent of Academy Awards) for Best
Child Actor.
Adding another ironic layer to the situation, Jaibo
becomes sexually obsessed with Pedro's mother, and
she gives in to his seduction off camera. Typical
of Buñuel's
style and themes, palpable sexual tension rises between
Jaibo's lustful looks and close-ups of the mother's
legs and the camera moves between the two with unmistakable
purpose. But that's the way the entire film flows
seamlessly without wasted moments. Buñuel
weaves the plot so tightly around a number of potentially
disjointed characters that there is no need for jarring
Pulp Fiction-like cutting,
yet this film feels as modern with its black and white
cinematography as Amores Perros.
It's certainly more emotionally resonant.
After the initial savagery levied at Los
Olvidados, Mexican audiences warmed
to the film after it received accolades at the 1951
Cannes Festival, justifiably earning Buñuel
the Director's Award. Subsequent groundswell of national
pride caused Mexican officials to "see"
the film differently, so it played to good box office
and dominated the 1951 Ariel Awards, winning top prize
in eleven categories. Not an easy film to watch, it's
one of the finest films ever crafted that deals with
the underclass if not one of the best films of all
time, period! Why it hasn't been widely converted
to DVD format in the U.S. is beyond me—this is Buñuel
in peak form and it deserves the full Criterion style
treatment. Meanwhile, I'll continue to watch my relatively
bare bones copy on a regular basis and loan it out
to friends strong enough for real cinema.
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