Los Olvidados (1950) is a film about homeless, desperate children in the slums of Mexico City. The title has been translated into English as “The Forgotten Ones,” or “The Young and the Damned.” The cast includes: Alfonso Mejía (Pedro), Roberto Cobo (Jaibo), Estela Inda (Pedro’s mother), Miguel Inclán (Don Carmelo), Alma Delia Fuentes (Meche), and Javier Amezcua (Julián). The screenplay was by Lus Buñuel and Luis Alcoriza. Photography was by Gabriel Figueroa. The film was produced by Oscar Dancigers, and directed by Luis Buñuel.

As the film begins, the narrator tells us that many of the largest cities in the world, which are apparently thriving and affluent, conceal a world of misery, where poor and hungry children are treated as delinquents and outcasts. Thus, the film shows the struggle for survival of boys in a street gang in a large city.

Jaibo is a teenaged boy who has escaped from a reform school. He has no money, and is trying to evade the police. He leads a gang of boys, teaching them to steal from beggars and from crippled people who cannot defend themselves.

Pedro is a member of the gang, and is Jaibo’s friend. Pedro is a delinquent boy, who has been rejected by his mother because he does not earn any money and because he spends all his time in the street. Pedro is trying to change and to reform his delinquent behavior. He seeks his mother’s love, but she doesn’t love him. She tells him that she never knew his father. She was raped by his father.

Julián is a teenaged boy, who works in a butchery. Julián’s drunken father does not work for a living, so Julián has to work to support their family.

Jaibo thinks that Julián had informed the police about him, and that this was why Jaibo had been arrested and had been sent to reform school. Julián denies this, but Jaibo sneaks up behind him, hits him in the head with a rock, and beats him to death. Pedro witnesses the murder, but agrees not to tell anyone.

Pedro later has a dream in which he rises from his bed in slow-motion, and sees the dead Julián laughing under his bed. This dream-sequence includes surrealistic imagery, with the hungry Pedro watching as his mother walks in slow-motion toward his bed, offering him a slice of meat which hangs from her hands.

Pedro gets a job at a tool-making shop, but Jaibo steals a knife from the shop, and Pedro is blamed for the theft. Pedro is taken to court by his mother, and is sent to a reform school. He is angry and resentful that he has been blamed unjustly for the theft, but the director of the reform school tries to help him, and is kind to him.

When Pedro is given some money and sent on an errand by the director of the reformatory, he is stopped on the street by Jaibo. Jaibo then steals the money. Pedro follows him, and tries to make him give back the money. But when they get into a fight, and Jaibo knocks him down, Pedro shouts that Jaibo killed Julián. A crowd has gathered around them, and Jaibo runs away.

Jaibo later murders Pedro. Jaibo is a sociopath who stops at nothing to pursue his personal gain. Jaibo brutalizes helpless people who cannot defend themselves. Jaibo lies, steals, and cheats his friends. He feels no remorse about exploiting other people. He tries to force a young girl, Meche, into having sex with him. He makes love with Pedro’s mother, when he sees that the older woman is attracted to him.

Jaibo had robbed and beaten a blind musician, Don Carmelo, who now informs the police that the boy is hiding in an abandoned building. The police track him down, and shoot him as he tries to run away. As he is dying, Jaibo says to himself, “I am alone.”

At the end of the film, Pedro’s body is thrown into a garbage dump by two people who knew him, in order to avoid an official inquiry into his murder.

The film is a powerful depiction of the plight of the poor and homeless in many cities, and is a plea for justice and compassion. The outlook of the film is bleak and pessimistic. The narrator says that the film proposes no solutions.

The film explores the problem of how children are mistreated and rejected by society, and how adolescents can be corrupted and lured into criminal activity. Jaibo is a portrait of how personal morality can be destroyed. But Pedro’s struggle to overcome rejection by his mother is a touching reminder that bitterness and anger can be healed by love and compassion.