At an Austrian boys’ boarding school in the early 1900s, shy, intelligent Törless observes the sadistic behavior of his fellow students, doing nothing to help a victimized classmate—until the torture goes too far. Adapted from Robert Musil’s acclaimed novel, Young Törless launched the New German Cinema movement and garnered the 1966 Cannes Film Festival International Critics’ Prize for first-time director Volker Schlöndorff. —The Criterion Collection
Volker Schlöndorff (born 31 March 1939 in Wiesbaden, Germany) is a Berlin-based German filmmaker.
He won an Oscar as well as the Palme d’or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Tin Drum (1979), the film version of the novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass.
Schlöndorff has adapted many literary works for his movies, including some critically well-received US productions, but he is also engaged in post-war German politics. He served as the chief executive for the UFA studio in Babelsberg. Volker Schlöndorff also teaches film and literature at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he conducts an Intensive Summer Seminar.
He was married to fellow film director Margarethe von Trotta from 1971 to 1991. —Wikipedia
Brutal ... Lord of the Flies transplanted to an all-boys boarding school ... in which the boys desire and repel one another in the usual teenage manner ... and just when it gets most rapey and violent ... our protagonist pulls us all back from the sexploitation abyss using nothing but the power of his burgeoning intellect. There really ought to be a sequel to this film ... years after ... Prime Minister Torless ...!
At times painful to watch, but a fascinating study of power structures in turn-of-the-century Germany and their obvious consequences.
Con un clima opresivo que va en aumento a medida que la trama avanza, “Young Torless” es algo asi como “Los 400 Golpes” del cine alemán, con la diferencia de que esta tiene un alto grado de existencialismo… read review
