[Revisit Review]
Volker Schlöndorff's Young Törless takes place in a world where cruelty has become an academic exercise. It's shocking how quickly the students (and Törless) dehumanize Basini and decide that he deserves whatever is coming to him. The scene where Törless leaves Basini as he is being tortured and cries out for him is key to understanding the film: Törless is a sociopathic watcher, permanently disengaged from the proceedings. If he shows emotions at an injustice, it isn’t because he is against said injustice, but because he can’t make sense out of the nature of the behavior. It's a curiously oblique yet effective examination of the pre-World War Two German mindset.
9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment