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Film
& Television
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Fernando Ramos da Silva as Pixote
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Pixote
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Hector
Babenco's 1981 movie, "Pixote," poignantly and
realistically depicts the street life which young abandonados are
exposed to in cities of present day Brazil. An abandonado is a boy who
either has been completely abandoned by his impoverished parents, or,
if he lives with his family, must hustle the streets in order to make
money. There are three million totally abandoned abandonados in Brazil
today, and "Pixote" depicts aspects of life common to these boys.
Of remarkable interest here is the fact that the boys who appear in the
movie are in fact abandonados. They are not actors; rather, they are
boys, mostly teenagers (but some very much younger) who are acting out
a documentary about their society. Throughout this beautiful and
unsettling movie-documentary, a host of contrasts are crisply
projected. There are boys who live in poverty; these young "actors" are
associated with relationships with friends their own age or slightly
older. The friendships are marked by tenderness, and they often grow
into a meaningful and passionate love relationship. Several gay
relationships in the movie acutely define and pinpoint Babenco's most
important themes. The poor boys are also associated with music, song,
and dance. There are sounds of a laughing joyful music wherever the
boys go. There is music in the courtyard of the reformatory, there is a
natural, rhythmical dance in the slums of Rio. The boys, especially the
most sensitive, beautiful, poor and desperate ones, also love nature,
and a sense of peace and quiet wherever they can find it. But there is
little peace, quiet, or freedom for the boys in Sao Paulo or in Rio.
Yet the most tender scenes in "Pixote" are in fact those few fleeting
instances where boys, often lovers, find a relaxing and ecstatic scene
(a beach overlooking Rio, land running along the train tracks between
Sao Paulo and Rio, secluded woods not far from an expensive disco) and
can celebrate friendship among themselves.
Contrasted to these beautiful (by the end of the movie, every boy seems
to grow in beauty and in intensity to escape and even overthrow the
power structure), sincere, generally good willed, and loving boys are
the powerful factors which imprison the young actors and perpetuate
such tremendous poverty. There is a rich pimp, there are adults dealing
in drugs who rip off what little money the young boys have, there are
weapons - loaded guns that kill. Tragically, the boys grow to accept
guns and knives; there is even a tendency to think of guns as a status
symbol. Ultimately the main character, Pixote, kills with both a
gun and a knife. With a gun, he kills one of his best friends; his best
friend, who had nearly been his lover, gets killed with a knife by a
striptease dancer employed by a wealthy pimp. So big money, wealthy
people, and weapons kill and destroy the more passionate and ecstatic
relationships innocently and joyfully formed by the lower-class boys.
The first half of the movie
is played by real boys in a real reformatory. The main character,
Pixote, is exposed to gang rape and to a loving gay relationship that
is shared between a white and a black boy. All of the boys accept
the relationship, and Pixote sees that there is true love in the gay
friendship.
In contract to friendship,
the guards in the institution are brutal and corrupt. After they
torture and murder the black gay boy most of the other boys rebel and
escape (the white lover in an acute sense of loss slashes his wrists).
A wealthy man becomes the
lover of another gay boy, and in time the man (also a pimp) gives drugs
to the boys to sell in Rio. The boys then take a train from Sao
Paulo to Rio. They believe that they will become rich once they trade
their drugs in for money.
The most memorable scene in
the movie then takes place overlooking a large body of water next to
downtown Rio. Pixote and his friends discuss what they will do when
they get their money. In the most moving scene in the movie, each boy
discusses what he believes his life will now be like. One boy wants to
buy expensive cars and guns. More interesting, another boy wants to
search for ways to overthrow the system that had made him suffer,
physically and emotionally, his whole life. He wants to find the guard
who had beaten him for no reason a year earlier. These noble sentiments
attract Pixote to this boy; their friendship grows, and the audience in
a most brief scene sees Pixote and his friend in each other's arms.
Pixote has found love, and he does not want any part of the ruling
class. The scene is one of the most powerful expressions of love and
friendship ever displayed in a movie.
With a proud yet suffering
look on his experienced young face (he hardly looks thirteen), Pixote
collects all his belongings in a small suitcase and leaves Rio. At the
very end of the movie he casts a pondering look (not a hopeless look,
but not a very hopeful expression either) behind him as he walks on the
train tracks away from Rio. He came here with three friends; now his
best friend is dead, he has killed another, and he has no money. Yet
life will go on.
Pixote will not compromise
with the ruling class. He escaped from their reformatory, and he has
killed the person who had stolen from him. Still, the movie-documentary
demonstrates that life for Pixote will be bleak. Life in 1982 is bleak
for poor young boys in Brazil.
"Pixote" is a powerful
indictment of Latin American capitalism, but more than that, the movie
shows the beautiful loving relationships that are formed among the
young, poor boys living in the streets of Brazil. Although love doesn't
conquer all, these boys find love in spite of the poverty
and
repression.
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From
the NAMBLA Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 3, Pg. 10, April 1983
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Copyright © NAMBLA, 2006
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