What can sometimes happen with Mexicans or the poor is that any outward show of decency or respect for your neighbor sheds in favor of a more useful way of adapting to your environment—treating everyone like shit. Self-preservation is innate. And so is baring your teeth when faced with threats from other animals in a hostile environment.
Los olvidados (1950, Luis Buñuel) centers on three boys, none of whom have fathers. PEDRO begs for his mother’s affection, attention, and acceptance. But she hates him because she got pregnant with him after being raped by a stranger. And the force of this figure and what it represents has now shown itself to be more oppressing than I’d ever picked up on before. For even in this community of social outcasts, there exists the stranger. This unknown assailant is the double of another of these three boys: JAIBO.
Jaibo never knew his mother or father. Is Los olvidados an indictment of society or the responsibilities of parents in the home? Both, probably. Jaibo is a sociopath. A predator. A career criminal. (I’ve always loved his intro where he orders that chorizo torta from a street vendor, spots the heat and bolts, providing the exposition that he’s on the run from just breaking out of juvie.) But he’s also got swagger. He boasts the confidence and roguish sense of adventure that attracts so many misguided youths to the street in the first place. And Buñuel’s ability to evoke this specific type of Mexican masculinity is keen. Because as depressing and bleak as this movie is, don’t forget it’s also fun and often hilarious. (How can this movie even make that scene with Pedro and the pedo come across as a comedic skit?)
Yet lest we forget, Jaibo is a harbinger of the erosion of morality in this community of impoverished peasants. And Pedro must choose whether he’s to follow this path or preserve what good is still left in himself. So far I’ve mentioned Pedro, who must choose between doing what’s right or wrong; and Jaibo, who represents the pursuit of vice. All that leaves is the boy who embodies pure virtue: OJITOS.
Ojitos has only recently been abandoned by his father (so recent that he still waits in vain in the mercado for him to return). We never hear anything about his mother. And maybe all we’ll ever know about him is that his sense of decency is indomitable. Also, I’m not going to spell anything out, but I see a definite significance in how when Pedro first meets Ojitos he refers to him as a fuereño, which can be translated as stranger or outsider; and when he addresses him as such, Ojitos replies in the negative—not recognizing or identifying with that label.
If I liken the three boys to stray dogs, then in contrast to their transient nature are the domestic residents. Specifically, Pedro’s mother, the waif ragamuffin MECHE and her family, and the blind busker DON CARMELO. And it’s with this other half of the ensemble from which Los olvidados gets its full effectiveness. Or how its milieu coalesces into such a relatable narrative.
It goes without saying that Buñuel illuminates all of the players here with their own individually unique humanity. Like the unexpected flourish when we cringe at Jaibo’s advances toward Meche, cornering her, desperate for a kiss, only for her to acquiesce and demand “show me the two pesos.” And while the tone of the film is abrasively cynical, it’s got no problem sprinkling in a little sentimentality—Ojitos and Meche with that tooth he swiped from a corpse is adorable.
And no talk of Buñuel would be complete without mentioning his surrealist cinematic stylings. Sure, the dream sequence; easy. But the mangy dog apparition affords us the grace with which to glimpse something like empathy with even Jaibo's sorry ass. Such is the poetry of surrealism. And what a perfect fit that style is with rural Mexican folklore and superstition. The imagery of magic and animal. Ojitos sucking from the cow’s teet. And on top of all of that, how often does the subject matter, the slayings, feel wrought out of the Old Testament? Or the gospels: Don Carmelo cleansing Meche’s mom with the paloma as symbol of the Holy Spirit.
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