Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Ilpo Hirvonen Luis Buñuel who was born in Spain was very well known for his surrealism, some have seen him as the father of it - An Andalusian Dog (1929). He made few English language films and The Young One (White Trash) is one of them. It was filmed in Mexico but takes place in the southern states of the US. If one knows the main subjects of the film, religion and racism, the idea of The Young One might not seem so original. Its plot reminds me a little of Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones (1958). But The Young One is a great example how Bunuel is able to make something intense and personal from a conventional subject.The Young One starts when a black man, Traver, suspected from a rape, escapes and runs into a young girl, Ewie (Evalyn). When Ewie takes Traver back to the place she lives in, Traver meets Miller, a man Ewie has been living with since her father died. Miller can't stand black people and he wants to kill Traver for stealing his gun, which Traver actually bought. When a priest comes to the place, Miller has to decide whether to let Traver go or to give him to the mob. To look good or bad in the girl's eyes. As the story goes on we start to see what is hidden under Miller.The film is very enjoyable to watch, it is written very well and the plot is interesting. Even in the beginning one will be hooked, because of how intense it is. The hungry outlaw Traver runs to the lake - grabs a lobster and eats it. The young Ewie stabs on a spider and collects honey from bee hives. This strong sensuality tunes a certain intensity for the film, which is reinforced by the absence of musical score.The Young One makes good observations on racism but basically brings nothing new to one who has seen The Defiant Ones, but it not the purpose of the film. Even that it's basic themes are racism and religion, The Young One goes deeper on morality and youth. Luis Bunuel's movie is a comical survey of these themes, racism and religion, the coexistence of them. Ewie goes to the shower without caring less about the fact that it might awake awkward urges in Traver. Miller brings high heel shoes for Ewie from the town, in which Ewie doesn't feel comfortable at all. Her first experiences of sexuality and adulthood are clumsy. In the same way Bunuel describes Ewie's first experience with religion. Usually films that "bash" religions, might go over the top and showing how amazed people are when they hear of it. But the baptism seems much more suspicious, in Bunuel's eyes, than the act caused by Miller's urges.A fine film about racism, it also describes youth and religion in a brilliant way. It's a poetic film, the girl and the obsessive sensuality, the urge towards the woman. Bunuel leaves the end open, will it be a tragedy or a comedy? The audience gets to decide that. The Young One is a tragical, but also a comical survey of religion and racism, it achieves a new level of cinematic poetry.

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

Michael_Elliott Young One, The (1960) **** (out of 4) An innocent black man (Bernie Hamilton) is accused of rape by a white woman so he runs off into the swamps of Louisiana. Once there he meets a young (11-13 year oldish) white girl (Key Meersman) and her racist guardian (Zachary Scott) who is also having sex with her. I've seen quite a few Luis Bunuel films now and earlier I said I wished he would do a normal film and tell a normal story without all the dreams and surreal aspects. Well, this is a film like that and I must say it's subject matter is still quite graphic and hard to watch even forty-six years after being released. I have a hard time imagining this thing got released in America due to its sexual and racist nature but apparently it did as the IMDb lists an American title for the film. It's also worth noting that this pre-dates To Kill a Mockingbird but this film here goes a lot further than that film even dreamed. The "N" word is constantly thrown around and unlike the blaxploitation films that would follow a decade later or the earlier Sidney Poitier films, that word has never had a more damaging saying than what's on display here. I'm not exactly sure what the director felt about race but every time that word is said it's used in such a graphic and evil way that you can't help but want to wash your ears out. Race is an issue throughout the film but thankfully Bunuel never lets his message get preachy. He lets the viewer see the hypocrisy and that's enough. The sexual aspect is also quite shocking since there are a couple love scenes between the older guardian and the younger girl. Bunuel also doesn't shy away from showing the girl taking a shower, showing shots of her legs and even a shot of her breasts. No nudity is used and in some ways this makes it seem all the more dirty because of the innocence lost. The performances are all remarkable and even in their most evil ways, the actors make you care for them. Scott steals the film as the racist redneck who's also having sex with the young girl. Just watch the actors eyes and you'll see him thinking, which is something a lot of actors don't do. The thinking of whether or not he should kill the black man and if it's right for him to be sleeping with this girl. The three actors are always looking at one another and you can see that they are thinking about their actions and what could follow. I was rather shocked to see this film get a * 1/2 in Leonard Maltin's movie guide but I guess this film would be rather hard to watch for most people. It doesn't shy away from its subject matter and Bunuel hits the viewer with punches from all sides. The film shows evil and bad people but he also shows the good in such people so it's rather refreshing to see a film that deals with race and isn't one sided towards any point of view.

IboChild THE YOUNG ONE may not be one of Luis Buñuel's finest films, but it is certainly one of his most disturbing and provocative. This picture distinguishes itself from typical "race problem" movies in that Travers is not the familiar "ebony saint" character popularized by the likes of Sidney Poitier. Here Travers (played with intensity by Bernie Hamilton) does not take any mess from the racist Miller -- and lives to tell about it. Miller on the other hand is one of the most vile and despicable characters ever to grace the silver screen. Not only is Miller a bigot, but a pedophile too. When Miller is not spewing racial slurs at Traver, he's trying to bed Evalyn, the recently orphaned girl next door. Daring for the time, THE YOUNG ONE will provide Buñuel aficionados and those interested in the portrayal of African American men in the early 1960's with much fuel for discussion long after the films has been shown.