Los Olvidados
d. Luis Buñuel, 1950
As trivial as it may be to say so, Los Olvidados could be the single greatest example of Luis Buñuel's genius. Buñuel's long, hard look at the slums of Mexico City filters the ideas of neorealist filmmakers like Vittorio De Sica (The Bicycle Thief, Umberto D.) through his singular point of view; the result is a heartbreaking portrayal of the disenfranchised byproducts of modern society. In its brief 80 minutes, Los Olvidados tells an incredibly vast story through a series of carefully-crafted characters. In essence, there's no solution to the problems Buñuel is portraying; even the reform facility one of the young delinquents is sent to proves to be quite useless. The power of the film comes from how immediate everything feels, the weight each and every single scene has. There are the incredibly vicious moments of the young ones beating up and robbing cripples, the brilliant dream sequence (which has to be one of the most terrifying sequences in Buñuel's ovure), and even the understated bond between Ojitos ("Small Eyes") and Metche. In many ways a perfect film, Los Olvidados is now my favorite Buñuel.
