- Actors: Fernando Ramos da Silva, Jorge Julião, Gilberto Moura, Edilson Lino, Zenildo Oliveira Santos
- Directors: Hector Babenco
- Writers: Hector Babenco, Jorge Durán, José Louzeiro
- Producers: Hector Babenco, Jose Pinto, Paulo Francini, Sylvia B. Naves
- Format: Subtitled, NTSC, Import
- Language: Portuguese
- Number of tapes: 1
- MPAA Rating:
- Studio: New Yorker Video
- VHS Release Date: May 16 2000
- Run Time: 128 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- ASIN: 1567301355
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Product Description
From Amazon.com
Hector Babenco, who went on to direct the acclaimed Kiss of the Spiderwoman, made an international splash with this gritty portrait of juvenile poverty and street crime in Brazil. Pixote (Portuguese slang for "Peewee") is the name of a chubby-cheeked 10-year-old runaway played by real-life slum kid Fernando Ramos da Silva. He's a natural, creating a childlike and vulnerable character left emotionally hardened and morally adrift by his brutal experiences. In an overcrowded São Paulo "reform school," a cross between a prison and an army barracks, he learns the hard facts of survival as he watches gangs prey on weaker kids, and the cops and guards abuse, beat, and even murder their charges. Pixote escapes and turns to street crime in Rio with a small gang, but his dreams of big money and a good life are dashed as they play at crime in a violent kill-or-be-killed world. Equal parts exposé and social drama, Pixote dramatizes the plight of millions of children who live on the streets or get ground up in the system that breeds hardened criminals from juvenile delinquents. Like Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados, one of Babenco's inspirations, this occasionally melodramatic portrait of poverty is shocking and affecting, but no more so than da Silva's own life story. After completing the film he sank back into poverty and crime, and died on the streets. His life became the subject of the 1996 film Who Killed Pixote?, which showed that despite the outcry created by Pixote, Brazil has done little to alleviate these conditions. --Sean Axmaker
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"PIXOTE" - Its still this way in Rio now!,
By Rick Needham rneedham@slip.net (Palo Alto, California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Pixote (VHS Tape)
After living, teaching and coaching in Brazil for some 5 years, remembering mainly "beautiful" things, I often pop in this video to remember the brutality and violence that can be found on the streets of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Tourists are often isolated from this violence, however, it is indeed real! This is a fantasitic film - and yes, The American "tourist" in the movie deserves his final fate .. Pixote does not!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tremendously powerful, disturbing look at the life of an abandoned street child,
By
This review is from: Pixote (DVD)
A deeply disturbing and heartbreaking neo-realist film, about an abandoned, unwanted 10 year old living first in a reformatory, and then on Brazil's mean streets.The performances Babenco gets from his non-professional cast are amazing, especially his tiny young lead. The film almost totally avoids the twin traps of false sentimentality (although it's got plenty of emotion), or needless flashiness. It occasionally feels aimless, but somehow, in the end, always adds up. Probably the weakest, most problematic moment is the opening, where the `director' (Babenco, or an actor?) tells us that these actors are real people, gives us some facts and figures about them, and tells that their lives are much like those shown in the film. It then took me the first few minutes of the movie to forget about that, and get involved with the characters, and not get all intellectually caught up the artistic complexities of `real people' playing a dramatic variation on their lives. So perhaps I don't consider this terrific, important film a 'perfect' masterpiece as so many do- but I deeply admire it and respect it, would encourage everyone to see it (though you doubtless find the experience upsetting) and look forward to seeing it a third time. You will never be able to look at a poor kid on the street quite the same way again. And I'm thrilled that after years of waiting, a proper 1:85 release is available, on Amazon.us. Yes, it's DVD-R, which means it may not play on your computer, theoretically will have a shorter shelf life, and has no extras. But after years where this important, influential film was out of print and very difficult to see - and when you could find it it was a terribly transferred 4:3 VHS based version that someone wanted $60 for - this is a big step in the right direction
5.0 out of 5 stars
too strong for words,
By A Customer
This review is from: Pixote (DVD)
Although I am a person who is usually never at a loss for words, all I can say right now is that you MUST see this film. It is too good, too heartwrenching, and too powerful for me to even remotely try to do it justice. This is what real filmmaking is about. Hector Babenco is a genius!
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