"400 blows" is a 50 year old French movie, and "Pixote" is a Brazilian movie from the 80's, however when you watch both you see that they speak "the same language". Pixote is the finest Brazilian film ever made about street Children in Brazil. 400 blows is one of the defining films of the French New Wave that denounces the treatment of kids in France at the time. And everything match when we see that the essence of the ideas that created the detention houses for children in France wasn't so different from the ideas that created Febem, "State Foundation of the good being of children" in Brazil in 1976.

Directed by rancois Truffaut, one of the defining directors of the French New Wave moviment, the film is a denunciation of the hard and unfair treatment of the juveniles in France in 1959. At that time, teachers tried to solve everything with ignorance and punishment, while families could be cold and bossy with their children. At school children used to be punished, humiliated and even attacked for the smallest incidents, like doing a joke or drawing of the teacher, which escalated into revolt. To punish harshly was already condemned by law, however teachers didn't look worried about it. In the movie, the teenager main character, who actually is very intelligent and good at writing is treated as an ordinary delinquent when caught skipping school classes. In fact, everything could be so different if the educational system of the time wasn't so repressive and blind. And this system was the beginning of everything going wrong since then till now, in the treatment of children.

I would say that in Brazil the problem is worse because beside the ignorance of schools and family treating the kids neglectly, they are still very poor. The kids that go to Febem, the Brazilian detention house for juveniles, are kids that comes always from the streets. They are the kids showed in the movie Pixote. Overpopulated and left whitout care the institution Febem became the famous "school of crime". When street children get there, they have been turned into real and dangerous delinquents. With frequents and aggressive rebellions, where employers of the institution are raped and beds are burned, Febem is very often part of the television news in Brazil. Since 2007, the foundation is being restored. The institution has diminished the number of rebellions from 80 per year to three per year since thn. However, I ask myself if the re-education of this children is being doing properly. Are this "children" being re-educated or just repressed?

I do wish it to work, as the children from 400 blows, the children from Pixote could have developed talents if treated with care. Repression just mask things. But, how things normallyhappen in Brazil, I bet they are just masking things now and letting to next major to fix it later.