Thinking Aloud About Film: Pixote (Hector Babenco, Brazil, 1981)

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/05/16/thinking-aloud-about-film-pixote-hector-babenco-brazil-1981/ We're both glad to find that PIXOTE retains all of the power we remember it for from decades ago when we first saw it. A realist political film whose aim it is to reveal conditions of existence as a pre-condition for creating change. It's a film highly judgmental of systemic corruption, particularly as it effects children, but very open and accepting about different ways of being, with one of the earliest, most rounded and complex characterisations of a teen trans character either of us remember seeing. In this podcast we discuss the achievements of the film; it's realist 'documentary' style, the extraordinary performances from the children and from Marilia Pera as the ageing prostitute, the power of its imagery; how we suspect it would be even harder to make and show today then it was then; we discuss the context in which the film was shown on British Television, we compare it to Buñuel's LOS OLVIDADOS/ THE YOUNG AND THE DAMNED, Fernano Meirelles and Kátia Lund's CITY OF GOD, and Alar Clarke's SCUM; and we discuss the racial mix of the group of children and its significance.