Learning Beyond the Classics: Mexican Cinema: Épocas de Oro
Directed by Luis Buñuel
With Alfonso Mejía, Roberto Cobo, Stella Inda
Not Rated, 88 minutes, DCP
In Spanish with English subtitles
Set in the squalor of Mexico City's slums, The Young and the Damned continues Buñuel's particular mix of harsh social realism with shocking surrealism. El Jaibo (Roberto Cobo) escapes reform school without reforming and rejoins forces with his young and violent gang. Searching for his snitch, El Jaibo begins a run of terror that a younger gang member, Pedro (Alfonso Mejía) witnesses. Startled and struck by what a life of crime entails, Pedro does his best to extract himself from his friends to start down a better path.
Copresented by the David A. Heskin and Marilou Brill Endowment for Excellence.