A painful and frightening film from 1966 with a message that resonates today: Young Torless

 German director Volker Schlondorff's debut film, Young Torless (1966), based on a novel by the great if enigmatic Robert Musil, takes a while to get into gear but once the actual plot is set in motion the film becomes incredibly tense, ghastly, and provocative. It seems at first to be one of many movies about boarding-school cruelty or cruelty of children, particularly teenage boys, to one another and the need to establish a sacrificial scapegoat (think Lord of the Flies, e.g.) In this movie, the eponymous Torless is heading off to a military boarding school in Austria sometimes early in the 20th century. Knowing every a little about the plot ahead of time, we'd expect Torless, who seems timid and even effeminate, to be the victim; but, no, the film surprises us as Torless is welcomed, more of less, into a clique of the student leaders - and the small gang begins to pick on, tease, torment, and eventually brutalize a young student named Basini (is it significant that it's not a Germanic name?). Even after the overwhelmed and terrified Basini appeals to Torless for help, Torless offers him no solace and persists in watching the scenes of torture and torment, that eventually become so extreme that the otherwise indifferent faculty members step in to stop the abuse. They hold a small tribunal, during which they interrogate students, including Torless - and Torless delivers an incredibly moving speech in which he attacks those who are indifferent and feckless or cowardly in the face of abuse and exploitation; obviously, his speech resounded w/ the German-Austrian viewers of the film, then and still, I suppose. At the end, Torless is by no means heroic, but at least he purged his soul as he moves on - the final scenes show him w/ his mother after he withdraws (or was expelled from?) this hateful school. The movie is of course painful to watch, but it's not unrelieved or gratuitous pain, and its message resonates today, perhaps more than it would have, in the U.S., 50+ years ago.