 Polin soon breaks out and travels back to his hometown, a rural fishing village, where he meets up with his best friend and falls back into his old routine—smoking, pickpocketing, shoplifting, skinny dipping with his friends and picking fights with the neighborhood bullies—all the while trying to avoid a run-in with the law, which he knows is inevitable.While on the surface a film about children, at the time of its release in 1965 the film was viewed by many as a critique on Argentina's regime.In addition to this, the film's brutal and realistic depiction of Argentina's state-run orphanages at the time caused a great deal of controversy.