 |
| Jorge Julião and Fernando Ramos da Silva in Pixote |
At the risk of sounding flippant, I have to call Hector Babenco's Pixote an almost perfect feel-bad movie. Not only is what appears on screen unrelentingly harrowing and sordid, but the fate of the young non-professional actor who plays the title character -- he was shot dead by police at the age of 19 -- carries its own burden of sorrow. Yet as a work of art Pixote has a kind of tragic nobility, an unflinching look at the life of the wretched of the Earth, accomplished with the kind of realism that only film can provide. I can't help feeling that Dostoevsky and Zola would have envied Babenco the availability of the camera to show the world what they could only display in words. Pixote (Fernando Ramos da Silva) is a street kid, rounded up and sent to a brutal reformatory, from which he escapes with a group of friends, who hustle their way into the underworld of Brazil's cities, involving themselves in everything from purse-snatching to drug-running to prostitution to murder. It works because of a stunning ensemble of performances with a few standouts, especially Jorge Julão as the transgender Lilica and Marilia Pêra as the ailing prostitute Sueli. If Pixote has a major failing, it's that its tragic vision results in no catharsis, only a numb feeling of hopelessness as Pixote and his kind face an unaccommodating society. But it's also a work of well-shaped art, of subtly shifting tones, that needs to be judged chiefly for its clarity and honesty.
No comments:
Post a Comment