I love Bunuel, but I'm not sure whether I'm more appalled by this film, or by the neutral reviews it's getting here. From what I recall from his autobiography, I assume he was just making something that would seem to fit the norms of American films on race, and didn't give it a lot of thought beyond that (if he mentioned this film directly, I apologize; I just can't remember). But my God! The preacher as moral center? You mean the one who gives a forced baptism to the girl? The main character--a bigotted, racist, lynch-happy, child-molester with ... what? ... a heart of gold? A moment of redemption? Have you all lost your minds? Someone who rapes a 13-year-old is not redeemed if he promises to marry her! No! Not even in film or fiction is that a tenable moral position. The only possible way to salvage this would be to claim that the entire thing is a critique of American cinematic values regarding race and those idiotic FatherKnowsBest figures embodied here in the preacher. Thus, sure, white guy tries to kill black guy, but that night they're sitting around telling war stories???? The happy waving to each other at the end??? I like Bunuel enough to attempt to believe that this was all a deliberately over-the-top parody of 1960-era movies. But I can't pull it off.
Review of The Young One
