The Young and the Damned (1950)
Directed by Luis Buñuel
88 minutes
(aka THE FORGOTTEN ONES / THE YOUNG AND THE DAMNED) Fusing social realist and surrealistic elements, Buñuel's film unflinchingly portrays the lives of a gang of juvenile delinquents on the destitute streets of Mexico City, led by the ruthless Jaibo (Roberto Cobo). Edging against neorealism but devoid of its sentimentalism, Buñuel zeroes in on the brutalities of life lived in poverty without any undercurrent of redemption. In 1951, Octavio Paz wrote of the film, "The world of LOS OLVIDADOS is peopled by orphans, by loners who seek communion…the quest for the 'other,' for our likeness, equals, is the other side of the search for the mother. Or the acceptance of her definitive absence, that knowledge that we are alone." LOS OLVIDADOS was among Barbara Loden's favorite films.