The Young and the Damned (Los Olviados):
Even the title gives them no chance
Even the title gives them no chance
Although made with meticulous realism and unquestioned fidelity to the facts, The Young and the Damned's (Los Olviados) qualifications as dramatic entertainments-or even social reportage-are dim...(The film) director Luis Bunel has assembled had no focus or point of reference for the squalid depressing tale he tells. He simply has assembled an assortment of poverty stricken folks-and has mixed them all together in a vicious and shocking melange of violence, melodrama, coincidence and irony.-Bosley Crowther, New York Times, March 25, 1952
I think Bosley Crowther is being more than a bit hard on Los Olviados. Mixing a film into a vicious and shocking melange of violence, melodrama, coincidence and irony successfully seems like no easy task to pull off to me. Life on the street for the poor is not an easy thing to watch as entertainment in any venue, be it in Mexico City (Los Olviados), Morrocco (Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Streets) or Rio de Janerio (City of God)-C. Cox, 1001: A Film Odyssey
Crowther may have been a bit hard on it, but he is also pointing out the weakness of the movie. It feels as if the primary reason for making this movie was to serve a misery feast of the life of street children.
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