The Young and the Damned

Street children in the slums of Mexico City. Jaibo escapes from reform school, comes back and pulls Pedro along with him. The film shows the children as neither innocent nor victims; violence moves freely between them. Producer Óscar Dancigers commissioned it from Buñuel after the success of El Gran Calavera. Buñuel had a script ready about a lottery ticket; Dancigers wanted a realistic depiction of childhood poverty instead, and a new screenplay was researched and written. The style departs from neorealism. Working in social realism, the film drops in surrealist moments, including a boy throwing an egg at the camera so it shatters and drips down the lens. The Mexican release met a hard reaction, with audiences objecting to seeing the country shown this way. At Cannes in 1951 it won Best Director. An alternate ending with a happy resolution had been shot at the producers' request. That version was found at Mexico's National Autonomous University in 2002 and restored for release in 2005, with Pedro triumphing rather than dying. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 91 percent and it placed 110th in the 2012 Sight and Sound poll. UNESCO added it to the Memory of the World International Register in 2003. Who it is for: anyone who wants to see social realism and surrealism holding together in one film. Who it is not for: viewers who cannot watch violence against children. The film cuts away from nothing.