Young Torless

A scene of Torless doing Yoga could have saved the film.

Shit sucked back then.

Young Torless, a German Foreign film by Volker Schloendorff shows how cruel boys can be in school and then takes it to a new level. A young classmate of Torless has been caught stealing from another student. The boys that find out torture him to no end because they hold this knowledge of his crime over him. Torless shows how being too philosophical can lead to inaction when a friend needs help. Torless had many opportunities to help his friend but was more intrigued by his friends torture.

Schlöndorff takes a turn-of-the-century coming of age story and infuses it with a Third Reich metaphor. The metaphor is rather transparent, but I don't think the film suffers from that at all. He deftly attempts to explain how such things happen, without ever excusing them, and the results are thoughtful and impressive. The monologue at the end is a bit too lofty to emerge from a teenager, even a sensitive and insightful one like Törless, but it's not too much of a stretch.

Perdeu-se muito da força do livro, passei o filme todo pensando como Stanley Kubrick teria feito um trabalho sublime com essa adaptação...

NOT a Nazi Germany allegory. An intellectual movie about the sado-masochism found in the interjunction of sexuality and social institution, and about a conflicted youngster, Torless, who witnesses the physical and mental abuse of a peer. A living paradox, Torless displays a seamless blend of moral outrage and emotional detachment, and it's hard to tell whether the experience has changed him, and if so, for the better or worse. Great movie, well acted, brilliantly shot and edited.

Needs more gay