Jan
20
Los Olvidados
Posted by: Brian | January 20, 2009 | Comments Off on Los Olvidados
I think this film criticizes the inability of the system in place to reform individuals in Mexican society. The fact that Jaibo escaped from prison and actually became a worst person than he was before shows that prison is not the way to go since people do not progress when released to society. This in contrast with the farm school shows what should be done, or a better idea of what could benefit society. I am assuming that this type of school farm was not present at the time in Mexico and if it was, they were a very limited amount. The police throughout the movie were most of the time helpless and did not seem to work efficiently by themselves either.
The lower Mexican class at the time is reflected very thoroughly. They lived with animals that were used as a major food source, and their setting was not urbanized. Yet the movie shows aspects of the urban life very close to where the characters in the movie lived. This shows how the country is in a development state and there is still a great difference between the lower and middle class. Still there is no interaction between both classes. What I found most astonishing was that the boys took advantage of the weaker ones. They make the poor even poorer, and the miserable even more miserable. It seems that true feelings of compassion or deep feelings were only seen when it involved parents. Both Pedro and Jaibo had a connection to their respective mothers. Pedro tried to prove her he was a good kid, and seemed like he worked hard to please her. He could not achieve this due to the obstacles Jaibo put on him. Jaibo on the other side, although he had not seen his mother for many years, he could still remember her face and described her as if he had seen her the day before. When he was dying he could hear the voice of his mother in his head too. When he talked about his mother was the only point when his character showed some sensibility. Julian also had a strong connection with his father, as he would always take him from a bar because he was always drunk. The father mentioned how Julian worked so hard to feed the family. The movie also demonstrates the importance of the role of the parent in the children’s lives. As many children from the gang said at the start of the movie, they moved out of their houses because they didn’t stand their parents or vice-versa, which caused them to live in the streets.
