Scenes from the 1980 Brazilian film, Pixote, directed by Hector Babenco. It was about a 10 year old delinquent, picked up by the police and deposited in juvenile jail. Like most such places, it was a cesspool of abuse, corruption, rape, and betrayal. The film follows Pixote (Fernando Ramos Da Silva) as he and his companions escape juvy jail, and live a life of predatory crime and survival. This is an excellent movie, but is disturbingly realistic. Babenco illustrates problems and issues that after thirty years of dealing with them myself (in a less severe context), seem unsolvable.
I saw an interview with Martin Scorsese, who had been deeply moved by the film. He said that Da Silva was a street child when he was recruited to be in the movie. Hence, his actual life had not been much different from that of Pixote himself. It's regrettably not a surprise that Da Silva was shot and killed when he was 19. Scorsese noted that Da Silva's face was one of the most "eloquent " to be filmed. To me, Da Silva's appearance is instead "haunting," since he reminds me very much of one of my students who was also shot at 19 (Shawn H___), from Chicago's west side.
