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Bruce Lee and the Outlaw review – brutal, beautiful portrait of a Romanian street kid

Following Nicu as he grows from childhood to adulthood, this documentary is as tender as its content is ugly

Some children come trailing clouds of glory. Nicu comes surrounded by a cloud of silver paint fumes, which he huffs from a plastic bag almost constantly, as do his fellow street kids and adults who are the legacy of the collapse of the communist regime in Romania. He pays for the bottles of paint, called Aurolac, by begging and – we see his bravado and tears afterwards – “sucking men off” for the leu that will buy him oblivion.

Film-maker Joost Vandebrug spent six years following Nicu as he grows from 12-year-old boy to manhood. The result is Bruce Lee and the Outlaw (PBS), a film as beautiful and tender in form as its content is ugly and brutal.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2YjxTPb

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