Pixote is good enough to touch greatness; it restores your excitement about the confusing pleasures that movies can give.

It's a fictional tale, obviously based on truth i and it's one of the strongest, but most depressing films of recent years.

A tour-de-force from Brazil that brought its director and co-writer, Héctor Babenco, international celebrity. Forty years on, the film packs no less a gut punch than on its initial release.

An unsparing, unsentimental look...