Jean Launay

Pierre Lentier murders an 8-year-old in horrendous circumstances. This 30-something solitary factory worker who lives on the edge of society is sentenced to death. A damning indictment of the death penalty and the manipulative behaviour of the media.

Sadiel, rebel leader in a North African state, takes refuge in Switzerland in the aftermath of a coup. Aware of the threat posed by Sadiel, the ruthless Colonel Kassar contacts the French security services to help in capturing the political activist. A police informer, Darien, is forced to lure Sadiel to Paris, allegedly to make a television coverage about the Third World. Arriving in Paris, Sadiel is captured and delivered to his opponents. Disgusted by the way he has been manipulated, Darien tries to turn back the clock, unknowing who’s dealing with.

Volker Schlöndorff transposes Bertolt Brecht’s late-expressionist work to latter-day 1969. Poet and anarchist Baal lives in an attic and reads his poems to cab drivers. At first feted and later rejected by bourgeois society, Baal roams through forests and along motorways, greedy for schnapps, cigarettes, women and men: ‘You have to let out the beast, let him out into the sunlight.’ After impregnating a young actress he soon comes to regard her as a millstone round his neck. He stabs a friend to death and dies alone. ‘You are useless, mangy and wild, you beast, you crawl through the lowest boughs of the tree.’

No início do século passado, na Áustria, o jovem estudante Törless, tímido e inteligente observava o comportamento sádico de seus amigos da escola, e não toma nanhuma providência, quando estes escolhem como vítima um colega da sala de aula, até que a tortura vai longe demais. Adaptação do aclamado livro, Young Törless de Robert Musil, esta obra prima, deu internacionalidade ao movimento do Cinema Novo Alemão, e ganhou em 1996 no Festival de Cannes, o Prêmio da Crítica Internacional para o já bastante premiado ciretor, Volker Schlondorff. Estudo intrigante da natureza humana na sociedade moderna.