A gang of youngsters run around the streets of Lisbon, playing, fighting and getting into trouble.
Manoel de Oliveira's first feature film is the Portuguese equivalent of an 'Our Gang' movie done right.The kids want what kids want, they put up with the incomprehensible and absolute authority of adults when they have to, and get away with what they can when the big folks aren't looking. They have their own mythology and pecking order, and Horácio Silva, as a typical kid, wants just to be accepted as part of the group. It's a truly charming movie. And de Oliveira didn't make another film for fifteen years. He said Salazar's government wouldn't let him, and given the fact that as of his death in 2015 at the age of 106, who was there to contradict him?
Manoel de Oliveira's first feature film is the Portuguese equivalent of an 'Our Gang' movie done right.The kids want what kids want, they put up with the incomprehensible and absolute authority of adults when they have to, and get away with what they can when the big folks aren't looking. They have their own mythology and pecking order, and Horácio Silva, as a typical kid, wants just to be accepted as part of the group. It's a truly charming movie. And de Oliveira didn't make another film for fifteen years. He said Salazar's government wouldn't let him, and given the fact that as of his death in 2015 at the age of 106, who was there to contradict him?