Streeters
(De la calle)
Screening on Film
Directed by Gerardo Tort.
With Luis Fernando Peña, Maya Zapata, Armando Hernández.
Mexico, 2001, 35mm, color, 85 min.
Spanish with English subtitles.
With Luis Fernando Peña, Maya Zapata, Armando Hernández.
Mexico, 2001, 35mm, color, 85 min.
Spanish with English subtitles.
A textured portrait of a poor Mexico City neighborhood, Streeters depicts a day in the life of a restless teen (Peña) as he picks up odd jobs, runs drugs, and meets up with his girlfriend. Similar in subject to Buñuel’s classic Los Olvidados, a study of the hopelessness of abject poverty among adolescents, this contemporary film suggests that little has changed in the last fifty years. Rejecting simple moralizing and sentiment, director Tort evokes an uncomfortable mix of pathos and outrage in his depiction of the these lethal innocents. While comparisons to last year’s Amores Perros are perhaps inevitable, Streeters is neither hip nor glamorous but an authentic and committed product of the independent Mexican cinema.