Historical Context Of Los Olvidados

Los Olvidados Film Analysis

In the film Los Olvidados (1950), one of the opening statements the narrator makes in the introduction is that many great cities appear to be magnificent but consists of “malnourished children without hygiene, without schools, and harvest future of delinquency”. Based on the book “Mexico in the 1940’s” by Stephen Niblo and multiple excerpts from book “San José de Gracia” by Luis González, this film accurately portrays and contains historical context from texts we read about while showing the misfortunes and struggles these children and their families endure. The film Los Olvidados is about a group of young and impoverished children and some of the hardships they face while living in Mexico City. The film consists

Carmelo who is an elderly blind street musician. Pedro is a young boy who spends his days messing around in the streets with the rest of his gang, which is ran by Jaibo who has ran away from a reform school. Pedro’s mother does not approve of Pedro’s behavior which results in Pedro believing his is unloved, but wanting to improve on himself, promising to find work and help out more. Ojitos is considered the “outsider” and was abandoned by his father in the market, and ends up staying with Mr. Carmelo. Meche is the sister of Cacarizo, another member of the Jaibo’s gang. Jaibo asks Pedro to take him to Julian, who sent Jaibo to reform school. Jaibo ends up killing Julian and forces Pedro to keep quiet. Pedro gets a job to earn back his mother’s love and while at work, Jaibo comes to visit and steals a knife, which leads to Pedro being accused of the crime and being sent to an agricultural type juvenile program. The director of the program gives Pedro some money to run errands, while being back on the streets he runs into Jaibo, who steals the money

He mentions a description of what rural Mexico was like in 1947 based on an anthropologist’s findings. We learn that the physical appearance consists of unpaved roads and adobe houses, and women in braided hair and long skirts carrying a water supply to their homes (Niblo, 5). All of these characteristics are present in the film, the homes that Pedro, Meche, and a brief scene of Mr. Carmelo’s are shown and appear to be made of adobe. There are also a couple scenes where Pedro mother uses water in a medium sized tub to clean off because there was no running water. She also dresses in very long dresses or skirts as did the many other women at the time. Niblo even mentions the use of folk medicine where herbs, charms, special elixirs, and superstitious remedies were widely used (Niblo, 19). In the film, we see this use of folk medicine practiced by Mr. Carmelo. When he uses a pigeon to rid of the chronic pain she suffers from. Mr. Carmelo says her illness with be passed over to the pigeon and take away her pain, she even says she feels better from the previous “treatment” he performed. We also see some of the historical context from Luis González’ book, “San José de Gracia” in the film as well. For example, González write how the highway brought doctors, salesmen, but also crime; gangs of pickpockets and