Chiken symbolism - Los olvidados (1952) Discussion

see my comment

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...the 13th of JuNE.symbolism is frequent in Bunuel's work.
If you have seen other works of this great director,I will be interested in talking about it with you and other users.

REgards
Didier Dumonteil

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[–] badbit 20 years ago

I'm interested in discussing this with you. And I think that now I figured the chinken thing out. But my english is very poor, i'll surely explain it wrong. I will try in the near future...

"A short guy, kinda funny-lookin'" "How? In what way?" "Ah, just in a general kind of way"

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[–] dbdumonteil 20 years ago

English is not my first language !So my English is certainly poorer than yours.
a great number of Bunuel's works includes symbolism.
Tell me which ones you know.

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[–] dreamaster 20 years ago

Legs!!!! Buñuel was obsess with legs

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[–] dbdumonteil 20 years ago

Perhaps so

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[–] HeadlessHorsemen 20 years ago

Bunuel has ties with France, as we all know he did Un chien andalou with Salvador Dali in France. The chicken is a political symbol to France, so that is one possible meaning. Also the cock is the male species, there are hens, rooster, and then cocks which dominate that species of animal. By the mom killing the chicken and Pedro crying because of it is a symbol of the mom castrating him. The dream sequence is famous for the meat and the meat is symbolic of the vagina of Pedro's mother. She is denying him love and in a Freudian way sex. So the chicken can be looked at as a symbol of masculinity and the mother killing it.

Just some of my thoughts.

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[–] oberon_calypsus 18 years ago

In the scene where Pedro kills 2 chicken, Buñuel shows the 2 dead bodies. Then, when Pedro is killed, you can see 2 chicken walking there. Maybe those chicken were the ones which Pedro killed, assuming that in movies everything can happen

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[–] literatelover 19 years ago

I'm not sure what the chickens are supposed to symbolize, unless it's simply the animal state in which these people live. Chickens, or course are not the only animals referred to; there is, of course, the dove. Much of this film had the feel of latin magical realism, as seen in Rulfo, Garcia Marquez, Borges, etc. I enjoyed it very much.
To the real point of my post, does anyone else think that the chicken sequence in "The City of God" is a direct homage to this film? The two films are, of course, quite similar, and I wonder if the scene in "City of God" was put there in part to acknowledge its debt to "Los Olvidados."

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[–] user-38 19 years ago

Remember when the farm school principal is telling Pedro why he shouldn't hit the chickens? He says something like, "Someday the chickens may take revenge." It sounds like a joke. Chickens are small and weak. What could they do? But that line is a major theme of the movie.

Los Olvidados shows a society that has no sympathy for the weak and the small. Jaibo is a prime example of that. He beats a blind man, robs a legless man, and bullies and finally kills Pedro. But it's also the way that society as a whole treats the lost children. No one wants to help them. The only people who take an interest in them want to use them for work or sex. As a result, the kids turn to robbery and even murder. Crime has taken hold. It's not safe to walk the streets. The chickens have taken revenge. It's the price society pays for its cruelty to the poor, the weak, the children.

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[–] rikachica2 19 years ago

With symbolism aside, I think another important reason for seeing the chickens is to acknowledge how although Mexico City is growing, becoming more urban and overpopulated (see first sequence of the film), it is still underdeveloped, or at least not developing fast enough to catch up with the population increase. I definitely think there is symbolism involved with the chickens (esp. at key moments like after they beat up El Ciego and a rooster shows up in front of him, w/ dramatic music) but I think they also help to create the atmosphere--a mixture of the urban and rural, as Mexico continued to become more modern (w/ boulevards, etc.) but still had roots in farming culture.

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[–] kikojones 19 years ago

I am tempted to say that of all the domesticated animals surrounding human beings, chickens are the most useful when it comes to survival. Farmers may have cows, pigs and goats, but the chicken is the easiest to handle. In addition, chickens are the ones providing the easiest means of survival by providing delicious meat and nutritious eggs. In addition, killing a chicken, as seen in Pedro’s aggressive reaction, is not that complicated as killing a pig. For farm people, chickens are a must above and beyond bigger animals. Everyone can have a chicken at home, whereas more space and food are needed for larger animals. This is why there are plenty of chickens among the poorer inhabitants the Mexico seen in Los olvidados. They also provide a great lesson in life, not only about survival conditions, but about how to take care of others. The proper care of chickens develops a certain ability for bonding among people, yet this bonding ends abruptly when food is a necessity. Is this the way people see each other as well? Culturally, chickens are of grave importance in Mexico because, aside their value as food staple, they are also symbolic in the struggle for survival—hawks and foxes also want to eat them. The legacy of institutionalized machismo is also closely associated with the cocky cockerel, though this picturesque aspect of Mexican culture is not depicted in this film.

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[–] david-legaria 19 years ago

The chickens DID have their revenge. Had El Jaibo not been awakened by one, Pedro would have either stolen the 50 pesos back from his pockets or killed him.
Funny you guys, with such intelligent comments about the film, failed to realise it.

Growing up in mexico, I used to catch a Christmas showing of Los Olvidados on TV every year, first time I saw it the whole chicken thing made perfect sense(you killed them, they kill you).

Also, notice how the donkey, a biblical symbol, wakes Meche up when El Jaibo kills Pedro.

Sorry about my spelling and punctuation.

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[–] mastercard 19 years ago

The thing I also noticed about the chickens is the fact that they always seem to show up following or preceding violence. They appear after the blind man has been beaten. They appear prior to Pedro's death. And they obviously appear when Pedro kills a few of them. The stranger thing to me is the double exposure of the dog when Jaibo dies. What does this dog signify?

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[–] zorraemilia 19 years ago

In the Latin culture, the dogs lead the man at the moment of death, they are the guides. Perhaps for that reason, Jaibo see a dog when he says "I fall in the black hole".

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[–] jarg1985 17 years ago

A GOAT wakes Meche up.

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[–] Mike_Bunuel 17 years ago

The chickens represent the irrational, but it plays in perfectly with the squalor of the entire setting.

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[–] birthdaynoodle 17 years ago

It's a real pity that those chickens were actually beaten up. I love surrealism, but I don't necessarily welcome its sometimes violent aspect. I understand that only violence can lead to shock and that shock opens way for new perceptions of reality. But there's simply no need for animal cruelty, or cruelty of any sort, for that matter.

Speaking of violence, maybe it's just me, but I think there's something kind of ugly and offensive about the way chickens look. The expression in their faces looks demented. When I see them, I'm immediately reminded of how they keep running around after their heads are cut off (I've never witnessed this, nor I want to). Crows, for example, look more intelligent and mysterious to me (whether in reality they are smarter or not, I'm not sure). Seagulls inspire in me a sense of freedom. But chickens look stupid and mindless, just like violence itself; and maybe that's part of the reason why they fit so well in this movie (which I like very much, except for that one unnecessary scene) and in "City of God". Or maybe I'm just not familiar enough with chickens...

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[–] Kinematico 16 years ago

Not necessarily related but in "Le fantôme de la liberté" you can also see a chicken (actually a cock).

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] gorgeoussk 16 years ago

I have my opinion about the chicken symbol in this movie. We see Pedro taking care of his chicken in the garden, with love and warmth. There is also a scene where a cock jumps on a fence of Pedro's garden and he shouts and throws something at it. So maybe the chicken symbolizes the society, the atmosphere of that town. Pedro has his own "World"(I mean taking care of the chicken) and suddenly another Hen appears into his own atmosphere and Pedro is really disturbed. We also know that the kid doesn't really like his society (Jaibo and all). We actually see chicken in front of a blind man after he gets smacked. So that chicken might also resemble what usually happens in that town (cripples oppressed by hooligans), so it is the life, the world that the poor children are living in.

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[–] milksteakplease 7 years ago

I thought they were suppose to represent the guilt Pedro feels for Julian's death. When chickens started to ramble and Pedro's mother started to hit them with a stick, we saw terrified Pedro screaming for his mother to stop as he was probably having flashbacks of Julian's death when Jaibo repeatedly hit him with the stick. The guilt that later escalated in rage.

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