Pixote

REVIEW
A brilliant, disturbing film about a band of youths who escape a brutal juvenile detention center to resume their desperate lives of petty crime in the slums of São Paulo and blaze a trail of violence. Our hero Pixote (da Silva), a gun-toting 10-year-old outcast, and his youthful friends get involved in a drug smuggling scheme and soon befriend an aging alcoholic prostitute (the riveting Pera), who offers them a brief respite of tenderness as a mother figure and a lover. Pixote, a desperate boy in a winless situation, struggles against the hardships of an environment deprived of hope and ruled by casual brutality. From a novel by Jose Louzeiro. Da Silva was murdered by police when he was 19-years-old for suspected drug and gang activity. (Portuguese with English subtitles)