Los olvidados (1950)

Directed by: Luis Buñuel | 80 minutes | drama, crime | Actors: Estela Inda, Miguel Inclán, Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo, Alma Delia Fuentes, Francisco Jambrina, Jesús Navarro, Efraín Arauz, Sergio Villarreal, Jorge Pérez, Javier Amézcua, Mário Ramírez

Luis Buñuel, director of, among others, the surrealist masterpiece ‘Un chien andalou’, made together with Salvador Dalí and the psychological exploration of a married woman in ‘Belle de jour’, has created a more sociological document in ‘Los olvidados’ that approach is comparable to films from neo-realism, for example by Rosselini and de Sica. But Buñuel makes no concessions and leaves his own mark on this grim and realistic film about the forgotten people at the bottom of society in Mexico. There are even some unforgettable surreal dream sequences in the film.

Buñuel made this film at the age of 50 and was seen by himself as a new impulse in his career. And the film does indeed come across as fresh and inspired as his earlier and best work. The film’s greatest merit is that no heroic or romantic sauce is poured over the survival instinct of the underclass, and that there is also no one-sided picture of these troubled people. The guys at the center of the film are rogues and beat and rob unceremoniously crippled or blind residents of Mexico City, but not everything is black and white. Pedro (Alfonso Mejía) essentially wants to do good and live a civilized life, but he fails to rise above his bad environment. He also doesn’t know how to be good and literally asks his mother to teach him this. At the re-education school, where his mother brought him because he might have stolen a knife, the principal asks him if he is a good boy. “Not exactly,” he says, “but I didn’t steal that knife.” Neither he nor the film itself pretends to be an angel who simply needs to break out of his bad environment. But there are hopes and wills within his character.

In addition, the blind man (Miguel Inclán), who gains the viewer’s pity and sympathy at the beginning of the film when he is mistreated, turns out not to be the pathetic good guy he may have initially appeared to be. He turns out to have very loose hands when he takes the girl Meche (Alma Delia Fuentes), who has just given him milk, on his lap. Buñuel has also given this Meche an interesting dimension, namely a slightly sensual one. When she hears from “Small Eyes” that milk takes good care of and softens the skin, she immediately starts trying this out by emptying a jug of milk over her bare legs. Opposite this is Pedro’s (Estela Inda) mother, who is longingly watched by the young criminal El Jaibo (Roberto Cobo) as she washes her feet. It is the beginning of a series of subtly erotic moments between these two characters.

Here and there the message or theme of the film may be made too explicit – such as when the principal director implies that it is not the children where the wickedness comes from, but their poverty – but Buñuel’s broad, realistic view of this subject, and his willingness to maintain a pessimistic tone make ‘Los olvidados’ an impressive and strong portrait of the poor population of Mexico City, where the law of the strongest applies and ethical, moralistic considerations are a luxury that the inhabitants can’t afford.