Pixote

1981 "They can't outrun the law of the weakest."
7.9| 2h8m| R| en| More Info
Released: 11 September 1981 Released
Producted By: HB Filmes
Country: Brazil
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

10-year-old Pixote endures torture, degradation, and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of its members are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old trans hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape and they start to make their living by a life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.

Genre

Drama, Crime

Watch Online

Pixote (1981) is currently not available on any services.

Director

Héctor Babenco

Production Companies

HB Filmes

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

All Prime Video Movies and TV Shows. Cancel anytime.
Watch Now
Pixote Videos and Images
View All
  • Top Credited Cast
  • |
  • Crew

Pixote Audience Reviews

Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Protraph Lack of good storyline.
Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
redrobin62-321-207311 Like its Moroccan companion film, Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets, Pixote is raw and hard hitting. It's kinda funny, well, maybe not so funny, that these kids, their bleak worlds thousands of miles apart, would have such similar circumstances. It's easy to forget that, living in a relatively modern society with well-groomed suburbs and food on every table, some people are really tormented out there. There are ghettos in America like the ones in Brazil, so it is a common, but sad, truth.Pixote had to be a foreign language film because Hollywood would never shoot some of the scenes Hector Babenco did. They're pretty controversial, even by today's standards, and no doubt would never pass the censorship board here. The MPAA would suggest so many cuts that, in the end, Pixote would end up looking like Sesame Street. Movies like these really open your eyes to the plight of people living in very poor conditions. I can just imagine what the Syrian-based foreign language films in the future will look like. They'll probably be so graphic they'd be impossible to watch. Still, this is reality, and if you can handle it, give Pixote a shot.
bkoganbing When one thinks of the Brazilian cinema it is this film Pixote which comes to mind. Hector Babenco gives us one uncompromising and brutal look at the lives of the street boys in Brazil's largest city Sao Paulo. One only hopes that it is 35 years since Pixote was released and the hope is things have improved for these kids who have to grow up way before their time.The films centers on the title character played by a young actor who himself never made it out of the slums. Babenco used real street kid Fernando Ramos DaSilva as the ten year old Pixote who was killed at the age of 19 in a homicide that still raises questions. One thing this film does show is that Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence didn't make it to Brazil, especially for the young.We see things in Pixote that you would never see in American cinema portrayed even now. Rape in a juvenile detention center is the established norm here, especially when it involves Jorge Juliao, a young cross dressing street kid. When the slightly older Gilberto Moura uses sex to assert authority over Juliao it's both frightening and touching. Poor Juliao has one rotten opinion of his own self worth from his experience. One gets the impression that home wasn't all that much better. But these things were being shown way before America even knew there were transgender issues. Juliao even more than DaSilva is who you remember from Pixote.35 years later Pixote is a powerful and disturbing film.
oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx Following the robbery homicide of a Brazilian judge by a street gang, the authorities make a sweep of the local street kids in the area and intern them in a young offender's institution. The film is in part a social issue film where the way the children are treated by the system is condemned and in part a story about a young lad who grows old far too soon. The social issue, although maybe broadly relevant, is hardly au courant some three decades after the film was made, however I didn't feel like this detracted much from the film due to the excellent characterisations and strong story line. It's also not limited by the generics of the prison movie as a lot of the action takes place outside the prison walls.The main character, an extremely small boy, Pixote (pronounced Pichote), is especially winsome and actually played by a real life delinquent who was subsequently shot by police in a shoot-out. He has developed a firmness of independent judgement and level of character that you generally only find in people well into adulthood, something that he's had to do to survive. It's painfully clear at some points though that he is just a skinny little boy that needs his mother.There is charisma to spare in the acting performances, including a youngster who does an extremely catchy homage to Roberto Carlos (the great Brazilian singer as opposed to football player) for the prison gig, and appears destined for stardom if he can stay alive.The kids are in peril because the police are beating them to death in order to find out who killed the judge, whilst the incompetent prison authorities turn a blind eye and fall into a state of apathy concerning the well-being of their wards (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil).Babenco appears fascinated by prison culture and in both this film and his return to the genre with Carandiru (2003) he uses nakedness to remind us of the fundamental vulnerability of the human captives in his film. In the poster for Carandiru you can see the survivors of a prison riot lying naked in a yard, stripped of their clothes (in which they could conceal weapons), in Pixote a "hole" packed with naked children. Beaten, unclothed and helpless it's quite easy to connect with the camouflage of swagger and defiance that they need to survive is taken away. Fundamentally a human is a fragile creature that hurts and most of their persona is just a coping strategy.There's a dream-like feel to a lot of the film, which is often brazenly erotic (the transvestite Lilica dancing in front of a crowd whilst having her under carriage rubbed by an onlooker's raised foot), and anarchical. It's not easy to label the film as nightmarish because some of the experiences, even when negative, are extremely rich, and the friendships heartfelt.A classic faux pas of many non-Anglo movies is that whenever whites appear, they are cardboard cutouts, but here the old American john is as well-realised and succinctly characterised as he could be.Favourite scenes of mine include the post-glue-sniffing fascination of Pixote, and the half-lit dormitory riot which is truly mad.
shneur This is a difficult movie to watch, and would have been even more difficult had I known then that the actor playing the protagonist was in fact killed in his home by police at age 19. Pixote (PeeWee) is a street kid in Sao Paulo who is caught in a roundup triggered by a murder in which he had no involvement. He is committed to a juvenile prison where he witnesses brutality and exploitation that ordinary citizens try very hard to believe doesn't exist. When finally he escapes, he and three comrades survive by the only means they know, which is crime. What makes the film so heart-rending is that both Pixote and the actor portraying him clearly do not wish to be the characters life circumstances have made them. Pixote tries to trust and to love and to bond, but there simply is no room in his world for the gentle side of human nature. One is left at the end wanting desperately to do something for the Pixotes of the world, but what? Building more children's's prisons with higher walls surely is not the answer...