Product Details

• Actors: Fernando Ramos da Silva, Jorge Julião, Gilberto Moura, Edilson Lino, Zenildo Oliveira Santos
• Directors: Hector Babenco
• Writers: Hector Babenco, Jorge Durán, José Louzeiro
• Producers: Hector Babenco, Jose Pinto, Paulo Francini, Sylvia B. Naves
• Format: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Portuguese
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: New Yorker Video
• VHS Release Date: June 27, 2000
• Run Time: 128 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 1567301355
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #254,616 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Hector Babenco, who went on to direct the acclaimed Kiss of the Spiderwoman, made an international splash with this gritty portrait of juvenile poverty and street crime in Brazil. Pixote (Portuguese slang for "Peewee") is the name of a chubby-cheeked 10-year-old runaway played by real-life slum kid Fernando Ramos da Silva. He's a natural, creating a childlike and vulnerable character left emotionally hardened and morally adrift by his brutal experiences. In an overcrowded São Paulo "reform school," a cross between a prison and an army barracks, he learns the hard facts of survival as he watches gangs prey on weaker kids, and the cops and guards abuse, beat, and even murder their charges. Pixote escapes and turns to street crime in Rio with a small gang, but his dreams of big money and a good life are dashed as they play at crime in a violent kill-or-be-killed world. Equal parts exposé and social drama, Pixote dramatizes the plight of millions of children who live on the streets or get ground up in the system that breeds hardened criminals from juvenile delinquents. Like Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados, one of Babenco's inspirations, this occasionally melodramatic portrait of poverty is shocking and affecting, but no more so than da Silva's own life story. After completing the film he sank back into poverty and crime, and died on the streets. His life became the subject of the 1996 film Who Killed Pixote?, which showed that despite the outcry created by Pixote, Brazil has done little to alleviate these conditions. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful insight!!, May 18, 2004

By 

Patrick J. Atkinson (Bismarck, ND United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pixote (DVD)

This is perhaps one of the most accurate depictions of life on the streets for millions of homeless, and parentless, children around the world. Vivid. Hard-hitting. Certainly not for the weak of stomach. Pixote tells the straight story of a young child's search for "familia", security and the realization of every child's dream for opportunity...... and of the sex, drugs, loneliness, violence and brutality that he finds instead in the streets. A great learning tool for students, social workers, law enforcement and those in the ministry: you will NEVER view street children the same after watching this. (...)

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly Infective, December 21, 1999

By 

Richard O'Dell (Columbia, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pixote [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw this film in the theater as a first release movie and still remember its disturbing images to this day. While most movies show the innocent dream world we like to think children live in, Pixote slithers and crawls through a dark and surreal world unknown to most of us -- yet it is a world with recondite beauty because Pixote knows no other. We see things happen that would be totally unacceptable in the antiseptic world of civilization but our little protagonists does not seem to see his world as anything but normal. With the self-survival morals of any jungle animal, he goes about his day-to-day life. And this juxtaposing of morals leads to a little bit of an internal conflict with the viewer before the end of the movie. I highly recommend this film to anyone but would warn you that if the "Pollyanna" world of children is what you think exists and want to see, this film with keep you awake for quiet a few nights.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must see....., February 26, 2005

By 

Michael J. Mccann "PRBuck" (Atlanta, Georgia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pixote (DVD)

Hector Babenco's tale of homeless children in Brazil is devastating. Must rank with some of the great films ever.

The film stars 10-year old Fernando Ramos da Silva, who was an illiterate kid plucked from the streets of Sao Paulo. At the beginning of the film, a judge has been murdered and kids are rounded up and sent to a reformatory. Pixote witnesses a brutal rape his first night. He quickly adapts to the chaotic and often inhumane atmosphere. Corrupt police pin the crime on one of Pixote's friends and brutally murder him. They pin his murder on a second friend, and proceed to kill him.

Pixote and friends escape to the streets of Sao Paulo where they resume their life of crime. The friends are Lillica, a transvestite soon to turn 18, Dito, Lillica's lover and ring-leader, and Chico. The friends meet Cristal, a drug dealer who sends them to Rio to sell cocaine. A drug deal gone awry costs Chico his life and Pixote kills the perpetrator, a prostitute named Debora. The three boys hook up with another prostitute named Sueli, played by Marilia Pera in an unforgettable performance.

There is a sadness in Pixote's eyes that is unforgettable. He accepts his descent into hell in a matter-of-fact manner. Viewers will have difficulty deciding whether he sympathetic or not. He is only ten, has a baby face, and faces horrible circumstances. At the same time, he is an eager participant in the crimes that take place. The portrayal of what Brazil's awful conditions do to the young and innocent is heartbreaking.