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Pixote (DVD, 2001)

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Hector Babenco's scathing and heartbreaking story of Pixote (Fernando Ramos Da Silva), a sweet-looking streetwise 10-year-old boy who is one of the three million homeless children living on the streets of Săo Paolo, Brazil, is based on the novel INFANCIA DOS MORTOS by José Louzeiro. Forced to endure brutal conditions at a prisonlike reform school, Pixote befriends Lilica (Jorge Juliano), an older transvestite; her boyfriend, Dito (Gilberto Moura); and young charmer Chico (Edilson Lino). Together the four escape the reform school and struggle to survive in a desolate world of poverty and violence. Traveling in the underworlds of Săo Paolo and Rio, the makeshift family of boys turn to a lives of petty crime to support themselves. Homeless, the boys are forced to endure hunger and extreme danger as they begin dealing drugs and eventually end up working with Sueli, a burnt-out prostitute (Marília Pęra in a devastatingly powerful performance) who seduces her johns while the boys rob them at gunpoint. This gritty and painful examination of Brazil's forgotten children is reminiscent of Luis Buńuel's film about urban poverty and juvenile delinquency, LOS OLVIDADOS, while the character of Pixote, played by real-life homeless boy Da Silva, is a direct descendant of François Truffaut's unforgettable protagonist Antoine Doinel from THE 400 BLOWS. Babenco's use of a largely nonprofessional cast and a powerful story combines to make one of the most haunting portrayals of childhood ever filmed. Furthering the film's relevance is the sad note that Da Silva died only a few years after starring in the film--shot by police who mistook him for a criminal. In 1996, WHO KILLED PIXOTE?, a documentary about the life and death of Fernando Ramos Da Silva, was released.