Daily Archives: April 13, 2019

Young Törless (Der junge Törless)
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff
Written by Herbert Asmadi and Volker Schlöndorff from a novel by Robert Musil
1966/West Germany/France
Franz Seitz Filmproduktion/Nouvelles Editions de Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Thomas Törless: There’s no mystery there. Things just happen. Anything’s possible. There’s not an evil world and a good world. They exist together in the same world.[/box]

I knew going in that I did not want to watch a movie about torture at a boarding school and got exactly what I deserved.

Thomas Törless (Mathieu Carriere) is a cerebral young man who is the latest arrival at a German boarding school.  He is befriended by students Beineberg and Reiting.  Another student, Basini, steals money from one to pay a debt owed to another.  Instead of reporting the incident to school authorities, the boys devise their own punishment.  This comprises escalating forms of torture and humiliation.  Basini goes along in the mistaken belief that he will eventually be let alone.  Thomas passively looks on in a futile effort to understand human behavior.  With Barbara Steele as a prostitute.

If you are not as squeamish as I, there is an interesting analogy to Nazi Germany to explore here and lots of philosophical talk.

Couldn’t find anything with subtitles, so here’s this

Eye of the Devil
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Written by Robin Estridge and Dennis Murphy from Estridge’s novel
1966/UK
Filmways Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] People tend to fear the ghosts in their own family. You feel these family curses and think, ‘If it happened to my father, it could happen to me.’ Christian Louboutin [/box]

I came for the awesome cast.  All I can say is the material let the actors down.

Marquis Philippe de Monfaucon (David Niven), his wife Catherine (Deborah Kerr), and two children live the good life.  Then Philippe is suddenly called away to the family vineyards, which are suffering the effects of a drought.  He bans Catherine and the kids from traveling with him.  She soon disobeys and joins him there.  We are introduced to two creepy siblings (David Hemmings and Sharon Tate) who appear to have supernatural powers.  Finally, we learn that the vineyard workers believe only a sacrifice of the Marquis will save their crops  More stuff happens.  With Donald Pleasance, Emlyn Williams, and Flora Robson.

A cardinal rule of the horror genre is that a long build-up must result in a big pay-off.  Dull movie ends with a wimper instead of a bang.