UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Ben Parker A black man on the run from being accused of rape washes up on an island occupied by some strange Bunuel characters. Bunuel had taken to being controversial in more subtle ways at this time. Here the strangeness does not involve people's eyes being sliced open (Un Chien Andalou) or toes licked (L'Age d'Or) but in the fact that the island's natives are a middle-aged man and a 13-year old girl (or so, her age isn't given) he has some creepy intentions towards.There is at times a salaciousness to Bunuel's gaze, in the shots of the girl's thighs, or one where she adjusts a towel around her chest. Hopefully this experience didn't have anything to do with the young girl deciding not to become an actress.The film can be quite confronting: about child abuse, bitter truths about racism. In 1960, the civil rights movement was just about to take off, and race relations were in a bad place in America, so Bunuel's film must have been quite powerful at the time. In 2015 it no longer feels revolutionary in terms of its take on race relations, but its depiction of child abuse is still shocking. It feels like one of Bunuel's more focused films, telling a simple story with vivid characters and a powerful message.

Polaris_DiB A black jazz musician on the run from a lynch mob stumbles across the game warder of a private island and the young, innocent girl the warder guards over. Sweet and precocious Evy is almost completely unaware of the world outside her isolated island and unable to defend against the advances of her guardian, while also not comprehending the nature of the problem with the musician's arrival.Bunuel's more well-known films are very impressive, but some of his lesser-known films aren't given enough attention for what they are. "La Joven" is a parable of innocence brought suddenly up against racism, exploitation, and sex, and as a whole is a very morally ambiguous film. Ultimately, the question must be asked: is one man's life being paid for by the freedom of a young girl, or will she choose a different, completely unfamiliar life full of its own trials? Those are the questions left with the audience by the movie's conclusion.Bunuel's mastery is reinforced by how well he is able to get into the regional dialect, settings, and character of this film. Here is a director who has shot movies from all over the world and managed to give a rather distinctive feel for each of the locations they've been made in.--PolarisDiB

christopher-underwood On the surface a simple little tale involving a middle aged white man, a young girl whose grandfather has just died and a black fugitive, later to be joined by a gung-ho racist and a priest. But simple, this is not. Beautifully photographed and leisurely told this is a tale of man's inhumanity to man, the corruption of innocence and the very nature of man. The young girl is central to the film and she gives a fantastic performance as she catches the eyes of all the men, yet retains her dignity throughout. It is not really true to consider her totally innocent from the start for she happily takes money for the 'stolen' items and intends to keep the cash for herself. What is more we assume she intends to buy dresses and make-up to make herself more beautiful. Tough though it may seem for her to become aware of such matters so young, we just have to accept it. She is reluctant for her relationship with Miller to become sexual, but not as unhappy as the priest and she has been promised more dresses and significantly a silver pistol, as she gleefully informs him after she survives his baptism. The racial affairs are extremely well portrayed, especially considering this is only 1960. The black character is a completely believable one and likable and seen to be liked by the young girl and eventually even by Miller. The priest (Is this the most sympathetic portrayal of a priest in a Bunuel film?) even offers to stand as witness at any trial. There will be no trial, the fugitive points out to him, showing he has just a little more grasp upon reality. One of the very many highlights in this, for me, was the young girl skipping happily towards the boat with the priest. She is wearing the high heels Miller has given her but she trips gayly along as if playing hopscotch and still, 'just a child'.

Aw-komon Some of the above comments have mentioned pedophilia in connection with this film. An important distinction has to be made here to prevent corruption of language. What the Miller character (Zachary Scott) does is 'take advantage of an innocent' from his position of strength as an older man, but that is not the same thing as pedophilia at all. The girl in question is 13 years old and sexually mature (an age at which it was FULLY LEGAL to get married in some southern states, Jerry Lee Lewis anyone?). This would make sexual relations between her and a younger man closer to her age fully legal and between her and the older man STATUTORY RAPE only if the laws in that state said so. It is WRONG, in the sense that the girl is in a weak position and gets taken advantage of. But that could happen at any age and age interval per se can never be the only measure of who took advantage of who (look at all the women married to men 20 to 30 years their senior), although it is a pretty safe bet. In fact towards the end of the movie, one of the likely resolutions suggested by Miller to the priest as a way to redeem himself is "what would happen if I married her?" And when Miller lets Bernie Hamilton leave the island he is doing this to redeem himself in his own eyes and possibly marry the 13 year old girl later!That said, the main character is not the black fugitive (Bernie Hamilton) but the young girl (Kay Meersman, a Liv Tyler lookalike in an amazing performance). She has lived on a remote island for most of her life and knows very little about the racist realities of the American South (or anything else.) She is confronted with it head on, when a black clarinet-player fugitive named Travers, unjustly accused of raping a white woman escapes to her island to hide from a lynch mob. She becomes friendly with him and likes him as a person and can't understand the irrational animosity Miller (her temporary 'protector' whom she hates and who sleeps with her against her will)has for this man.All this creates a whole bunch of complex tensions that Bunuel deals with in the most masterful way possible. You really believe in all these characters, they are multi-dimensional and historically and psychologically valid. Bunuel has been called cynical and cruel. That may be true but nevertheless quite a few of his films remain consummate works of art because they live up to Pascal's idea of showing man's 'greatness within wretchedness.' This is one of them. 'The Young One' is a MUST SEE film, if there ever was one. It makes all other films about racism and the corruption of innocence look like amateur hour.