"Pixote" concerns the (mis)adventures of the eponymous hero, a pre-adolescent boy in urban Brazil, abandoned by his parents, who first endures the horrors of a youth prison, and then those of life on the street. Filmed in a quasi-documentary style with real street kids instead of professional actors (for the most part), "Pixote" will leave the viewer utterly devastated at the end of its 2+ hours. It is particulary effective when it develops other characters as they are seen by Pixote, especially those of the streetwise transvestite homosexual Lilica and the aging alcoholic prostitute Sueli (unforgettably portrayed by Marilia Pera, one of the few pro actors in the cast), who become surrogate parents to the young boy in a kind of improvised family whose economy is based on mugging Sueli's clients. Both the tragic denoument (which comes at the end of a film in which tragedy follows tragedy, ad infinitum), and the final shot of Pixote playing alone on the railroad tracks with haunting accompanying music on the soundtrack, are unbearably poignant. A masterpiece.
Review of Pixote
