Like Black Orpheus, Pixote is a mixture of social realism and myth; however, under Hector Babenco's (Kiss of the Spider Woman) direction, the proportions are reversed. Pixote, a ten-year old boy from the slums of Sao Paulo, inhabits a world of poverty--populated by thieves, prostitutes and pimps (all played by a cast of nonprofessionals). Preying off other people, taking their possessions, even their lives, Pixote's criminal life is the modern version of the Depression-era gangster (see examples in our Warner Brothers series), only in the eighties the outlaw “hero” is a child. Although Pixote's rebellion is romanticized, the film is a powerful portrait of innocence and corruption, vividly depicting the problem of abandoned children in Brazil.