Pixote: A Lei do Mais Franco was screened in Brazil and presented on theaters in the year of 1981. Its director was one “of the Argentineans who emigrated to Brazil. Hector Babenco (Buenos Aires, February 7 of the year 1946) was the only one to make his mark to any extent on the international scene. With three years of cinematographic activity in Europe behind him, he established himself in São Paulo at the end of the 60's, where he decided to direct and produce documentaries. One of these, O Fabuloso Fittipaldi (The Fabulous Fittipaldi, 1973), about the first Brazilian idol of Formula 1 racing, Emerson Fittipaldi, opened the doors to fiction films for him. The craftsmanlike finish to his film O Rei da Noite (The King of the Night, 1975) and his acerbic treatment of the São Paulo underworld, made him into one of the bright hopes of the decade, confirmed by robust portraits of urban violence such as in Lúcio Flávio, O Passageiro da Agonia (Lúcio Flávio, Passenger of Suffering, 1977) and Pixote, A Lei do Mais Fraco (Pixote, the Law of the Weakest, 1980), perhaps the most prestigious Brazilian film in the world. Attracted to American cinema, he remained faithful to adaptations of literature, none as successful as O Beijo da Mulher Aranha (The Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1984), which gained the best-actor Oscar award for the American William Hurt.” (www.mre.gov.br). The screenplay was written by him and the Jorge Durán form Chile. “The script used 200 interviews with children as source material. Not surprisingly the film has a documentary quality, as it follows the live of a group of boys, presenting the action from their prespective.” (Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, 2003, 146); “Babenco and Durán’s screenplay changed following the workshops with the child actors, chosen because of their knowledge of the life the film represents. The result is a realistic portrayal of a specific time period for this Brazilian society, coming partially from the perspective of the boys.” (Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, 2003, 147).
“A brief social, political and filmic background for Brazil in the relevant period will provide a framework to better understand the ways in which Pixote fictionalizes social realities. Pixote was made in 1980, when filmmakers were starting to address the problems in Brazilian society, following the military regime’s relaxation of its control of its Brazilian society beginning in 1975. There was effectively a military-led government in Brazil from 1964 until 1985, with 1968 to 1972 the most brutal period. The government of General Ernesto Geisel limited political reforms beginning in 1974 within a structure of military dictatorship, reforms that had an impact on filmmaking; […] With the defeat of the revolutionary left, the continuing power of the military, widespread police violence in the 1980s, and the demands of the marketplace, filmmaking moved away from a revolutionary agenda, with a redefinition of the overtly political. […], there was a new sense of pessimism because of this lack of political vision.” (Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, 2003, 143,144).
The purpose of the film is stated by Babenco when he makes “clear that the absence of a large-scale political vision is deliberate. He argued, “Left-wing people want a theorem. They want a formula….I don’t believe in the solution proposed by leftists. I believe only in individual solutions. And I did Pixote in order to show that. The relationship of one man, two, three, four or five men, are more important than the whole society”. The film aims to show the dark side of life for abandoned children in Brazil and to earn audience sympathy for them by focusing on their experiences.” (Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, 2003, 145,149). The main idea of the film is “though a focus on poor, abandoned child, expose the poverty of the people of Brazil and highlight the neglect and abuse of the most vulnerable of Brazil’s citizens, its children. Relationships, mediated through the reconstructed family unit, provide the focus of concern in Pixote. Babenco relies on a realistic approach in an attempt to produce a “true to life” representation of street children in Brazil and to give a social problem a human face, through the close focus on a group of friends, both in the reform school and on the streets of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The film is an exposé of the violence, corruption, and ineffectual nature of the authorities.” (Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, 2003, 145,146,150).In concern to the title, Pixote: A Lei do Mais Franco I think it is a phonetic figure of speech to resemble Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote de la Mancha; reminding us of the eternal struggle of Pixote, the struggle of this dreamer for a dream against the shocking and plain reality. The film even though it is not a documentary it gives or has the impression of being one, making it an authority film. In the same way symbolism of violence is used to make psychological connections to criminal inquiries of the main characters. Nevertheless, for the most, the film makes its case via an emotional appeal making us take the side of poor abandoned Pixote and confronting us to the cruel and dramatic reality that most of the time we ignore. Taking into account the year in which the piece was made, I certainly expect this film to be a subtle social and political critique, so in order to see the message we should read between the lines using the art of mistrust. I expect it to be an excellently executed portray of real life, of the other face of the coin which is not shiny gold, but corroded stone.
“A brief social, political and filmic background for Brazil in the relevant period will provide a framework to better understand the ways in which Pixote fictionalizes social realities. Pixote was made in 1980, when filmmakers were starting to address the problems in Brazilian society, following the military regime’s relaxation of its control of its Brazilian society beginning in 1975. There was effectively a military-led government in Brazil from 1964 until 1985, with 1968 to 1972 the most brutal period. The government of General Ernesto Geisel limited political reforms beginning in 1974 within a structure of military dictatorship, reforms that had an impact on filmmaking; […] With the defeat of the revolutionary left, the continuing power of the military, widespread police violence in the 1980s, and the demands of the marketplace, filmmaking moved away from a revolutionary agenda, with a redefinition of the overtly political. […], there was a new sense of pessimism because of this lack of political vision.” (Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, 2003, 143,144).
The purpose of the film is stated by Babenco when he makes “clear that the absence of a large-scale political vision is deliberate. He argued, “Left-wing people want a theorem. They want a formula….I don’t believe in the solution proposed by leftists. I believe only in individual solutions. And I did Pixote in order to show that. The relationship of one man, two, three, four or five men, are more important than the whole society”. The film aims to show the dark side of life for abandoned children in Brazil and to earn audience sympathy for them by focusing on their experiences.” (Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, 2003, 145,149). The main idea of the film is “though a focus on poor, abandoned child, expose the poverty of the people of Brazil and highlight the neglect and abuse of the most vulnerable of Brazil’s citizens, its children. Relationships, mediated through the reconstructed family unit, provide the focus of concern in Pixote. Babenco relies on a realistic approach in an attempt to produce a “true to life” representation of street children in Brazil and to give a social problem a human face, through the close focus on a group of friends, both in the reform school and on the streets of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The film is an exposé of the violence, corruption, and ineffectual nature of the authorities.” (Contemporary Cinema of Latin America, 2003, 145,146,150).In concern to the title, Pixote: A Lei do Mais Franco I think it is a phonetic figure of speech to resemble Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote de la Mancha; reminding us of the eternal struggle of Pixote, the struggle of this dreamer for a dream against the shocking and plain reality. The film even though it is not a documentary it gives or has the impression of being one, making it an authority film. In the same way symbolism of violence is used to make psychological connections to criminal inquiries of the main characters. Nevertheless, for the most, the film makes its case via an emotional appeal making us take the side of poor abandoned Pixote and confronting us to the cruel and dramatic reality that most of the time we ignore. Taking into account the year in which the piece was made, I certainly expect this film to be a subtle social and political critique, so in order to see the message we should read between the lines using the art of mistrust. I expect it to be an excellently executed portray of real life, of the other face of the coin which is not shiny gold, but corroded stone.
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