Los Olvidados

General Information

Release year

1950

Director

Luis Buñuel

Biography of director(s)

Luis Buñuel was a Spanish and Mexican director who developed his own unique style of filmmaking blending several traditions in a career spanning multiple decades and countries. His films are known for their political commentary and moral complexity. He grew up in Spain and was close friends with the famous surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, whose stylistic influence is evident in Buñuel’s films such as Los Olvidados. He moved around a lot in his career, making films in France and Spain in his early career until eventually leaving Europe for America after the Spanish Civil War (in which he had coordinated propaganda for the Republican side). He made several movies in Mexico during the “golden age” of Mexican cinema, including Los Olvidados. He remained in Mexico for the rest of his life, dying there in 1983.

Country

Mexico

Original synopsis of the film

In Mexico City, Jaibo, a tough teenager, escapes from a juvenile detention center and reconnects with a gang of boys living on the streets. He leads them in acts of theft and mischief until he confronts Julián, a boy he believes betrayed him to the authorities. In front of Pedro, a younger and more impressionable boy, Jaibo violently kills Julián and forces Pedro to keep the secret.

Pedro wishes for his mother’s affection, but she treats him harshly and often pushes him away. He tries to do honest work, even finding a job at a blacksmith’s shop, but Jaibo sabotages him at every turn, stealing and framing him for crimes he didn’t commit. When Jaibo plants a stolen knife on him, Pedro’s mother loses faith in him completely, accusing him of being no better than the other delinquents. Isolated and desperate, Pedro finally confesses to authorities that Jaibo murdered Julián, hoping this will clear his name. After Jaibo learns of this, he kills Pedro and throws his body in the trash. Soon after, the police close in on Jaibo; during a chase, he is shot and killed.

Mise-en-scène

Describes the setting of a scene in a play or a film. It refers to everything placed on the stage or in front of the camera—including people. In other words, mise en scène is a catch-all for everything that contributes to the visual presentation and overall “look” of a production. When translated from French, it means “placing on stage.”

Setting

Explanation

The modernity and grandness of the central plaza is familiar to the audience, it’s what everyone knows when they think of Mexico City. The immediate pan to the slums of the city is a powerful message, that the Mexico City represented in media as pristine and modern leaves out much of the reality of the city which is full of struggling, abandoned youth.

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Lighting

Explanation

The lightness and openness of the schoolyard contrasts with the relative obscurity of the rest of the film’s scenery. This also might be the only moment in the film that it is clear we are outside of the urban area. This lightness and openness at the school is representative of the hope it represents. The openness of the countryside equates to the sense of boundless opportunities that would come with the stability and prosperity that the educational program is meant to provide.

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Costume

Explanation

The costumes in the movie are very stylized, as the boy Ojitos is casted to look like he is not from Mexico city; his outfit emphasizes that he is an outsider, a child dropped into a brutal world he doesn’t understand. Furthermore, throughout the film, the outfits of the characters are depicted as very worn out and old, symbolizing poverty and the reality of the living situation that Bruñuel wanted to portray.

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Cinematography

This is the art of photography and visual storytelling in a motion picture or television show. Cinematography comprises all on-screen visual elements, including lighting, framing, composition, camera motion, camera angles, film selection, lens choices, depth of field, zoom, focus, color, exposure, and filtration. Cinematography sets and supports the overall look and mood of a film’s visual narrative. Each visual element that appears on screen, a.k.a. the mise-en-scène of a film, can serve and enhance the story—so it is the cinematographer’s responsibility to ensure that every element is cohesive and support the story. Filmmakers often choose to spend the majority of their budget on high-quality cinematography to guarantee that the film will look incredible on the big screen.

Point of View

Comments

In this scene, Pedro is hiding from the blind man in his house and Ojitos is covering for him. By placing the camera behind the barrels with Pedro, the audience experiences firsthand the feeling of being hidden. This serves to strengthen the viewer’s anxiety, hoping the man won’t walk towards the barrels and discover Pedro.

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Quality

Comments

There are many ways to depict a character moving from awake state into dreaming state, in many films you may see images being hazy or swirly to represent dreams. In Los Olvidados, however, Buñuel is able to transition into Pedro’s dream by superimposing a transparent Pedro onto his sleeping body. The scene is thereafter able to be filmed normally with the audience knowing it is actually a dream.

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Movement

Comments

In this scene, Jaibo steals money from Pedro and escapes on the bus. The placement of the camera in the bus allows the audience’s perspective to move with the bus and makes Pedro’s efforts to chase the bus down seem pathetic as he shrinks into the distance. By having the camera move in this manner, the audience gets a sense of Pedro’s frustrations by seeing his body movements indicate disappointment from afar.

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Editing

Editing is the process of putting a film together–the selection and arrangement of shots and scenes. Editing can condense space and time, emphasize separate elements and bring them together, and organize material in such a way that patterns of meaning become apparent. In addition, editing can determine how a film is perceived: for instance, quick, rapid cuts can create a feeling of tension, while a long take can create a more dramatic effect. The first photoplays generally had no cutting, owing to the fact that they were single-reel films; once filming began, you could not stop until the film ran out. (https://filmglossary.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/term/editing/)

Coherence, Continuity, and Rhythym

Comments

The rhythm of this scene is unlike many other scenes in the movie, likely due to its intensity. Buñuel starts off with a heated confrontation between Jaibo and Julian, a rival gang member. While the majority of scenes from Los Olvidados are edited in a slower manner, characterizing the slow-burning plot, this scene is full of shot-counter-shot between character interactions and quick cuts as opposed to longer, panning shots. This drastic change from the general editing flow of the movie highlights the importance and emotions of this scene for the viewer; one cut is marked by a sudden strike Jaibo delivers to Julian, in the next Julian plummets to the ground, in the next Jaibo is beating him with a tree branch, and in the next Pedro starts furiously grabbing Jaibo from behind so that he stops. All of this happens in the span of 10 seconds. This scene is a testament to Buñuel’s talent of controlling the pace of the plot through editing.

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Editing Style

Comments

In one of the final scenes of the movie, Buñuel utilizes dialectical montage and cross-cutting to illustrate Jaibo killing Pedro. The scene begins with Pedro entering the barn and running into Jaibo, before Jaibo begins attacking him. Before we are able to see the aftermath of the fight, however, Buñuel takes us to Meche, who feels something is wrong and wakes up her grandfather. The contrast between these two cross-cuts (the violence of Jaibo and Pedro with the tranquility of Meche’s peaceful home) shows Buñuel commenting on conflict vs. innocence, a classic thesis vs. antithesis idea within dialectical montage. By now, Buñuel’s use of cross-cutting has done enough for the viewer to infer what will come next; Meche and her grandfather arrive at the barn to find Jaibo has already fled, and Pedro is left dead in the barn.

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Transitions

Comments

By starting with very famous and popular tourist destinations (New York, Paris, London) and through using very pleasant transitions (cities dissolving or superimposing into one another), Buñuel brings the viewer into a pleasant mental state. However, once scenes of Mexico City begin to appear, the viewer is abruptly brought to the reality of Mexico City - areas filled with poverty and abandoned youth. Buñuel expertly grabs the viewer’s attention and introduces the importance of the movies within the first couple minutes.

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Sound

Sound is an integral part in a film. It refers to everything that the audience hears including sound effects, words and music. Sound is used in films for various purposes, including: providing the information to the viewer about the location of the scene, heightening the mood, telling the audience about the characters and advancing the plot. Every person who watches a film realizes that the choice of voices, soundtrack and music present in a film affect the way that the viewer perceives a particular film. As a result, the sound is an important and integral element of the film, one that determines the way that the viewer experiences and understands a film as a visual experience.

Sound Type

Narrative

Narrative analysis is an examination of the story elements, including narrative structure, character, and plot. A narrative can be considered to be the chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space. In order to analyze the narrative of a film, we need to first make the distinction between the plot of the film and the story of the film. This is sometimes referred to as the discourse and story of a film. Narrative may also be called the story thought story mainly refers to the events that describe the narrative.

Plot Comments

Story Comments

Narrator Type

Narrative Structure

Genre

Film genres are various forms or identifiable types, categories, classifications or groups of films. (Genre comes from the French word meaning "kind," "category," or "type"). These provide a convenient way for scriptwriters and film-makers to produce, cast and structure their narratives within a manageable, well-defined framework. Genres also offer the studios an easily 'marketable' product, and give audiences satisfying, expected and predictable choices. Genres refers to recurring, repeating and similar, familiar or instantly-recognizable patterns, styles, themes, syntax, templates, paradigms, motifs, rules or generic conventions.