The reckless, vulgar party behavior of teenagers in the Australian film Blackrock (1997) precedes a horrifying rape and murder of one of the party participants, a 15-year-old girl.

Recalling a real-life 1991 incident of which I know nothing, it is a searing and necessary minor achievement directed by Steven Vidler and based on a play by Nick Enright.  The main character, Jared (Laurence Bruels), is the one who throws the well-attended wild party and who, alone, witnesses the rape (though not the murder) of the girl.  But he does nothing for her; he just watches, astonished.  He allows his friends to perpetrate sheer evil.  Hard truths pile up and do a number on Jared’s nerves.  He rebels against his divorced mother but pulls back from that rebellion too; he becomes distant toward his girlfriend.  He is confused, shocked at himself, isolated.

The film is a part-time study of adolescence, and also of a Western world not without its inevitable moral ignorance, inexperience and paralysis.  The ignorance of the teenage rapists is so strong it leads them to commit this particular crime.  The inexperience of Jared is so strong it results in the paralysis.  He is so dissociated from anything providing a moral ballast that he cannot act against wickedness done to another.  In contrast, his best friend Ricko acts, but psychopathically, as when he clobbers a boy who takes a swing at Jared.  Like the rapists, Ricko is a brute.

Blackrock would have better had it not been melodramatic, but as it is, it is engrossing cinematic drama.  And you won’t find a more expert collection of teenage actors than the one here, for amid all the verve and passion there is little overacting, which means little exaggeration.  Granted, some of the adults do a trifle better (more depth and nuance) but on the other hand, among them there are overactors.  Vidler should have restrained them a bit.

A German industrialist, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), becomes virtuous enough to start saving the lives of captured Jews in Steven Spielberg‘s Schindler’s List, from 1993. The man who, in response to the film, observed that the Holocaust was not about salvation but rather annihilation was right. Also true, however, is that the film effectively shows people—the Jews—being sucked into a sphere of nonstop human destructiveness; the obliteration of lives, yes.

Schindler’s List has its flaws but, too, it offers some staggering scenes. Spielberg is a true and disturbing artist here, as when a gunshot is heard before the tracking camera exposes the dead body of a Jewish boy whom, shocked, we believe had been pardoned by the monstrous Nazi, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). Such scenes of Auschwitz as that of the gathering of women at a site where they might be gassed and a melee involving children of these women are hair-raising and dramatically momentous.

Neeson was displeased with his performance as Schindler, claiming he failed to own the role. Spielberg’s and screenwriter Steven Zaillian’s material owns the movie.

The French Connection (1971), the William Friedkin film, has a potent New York City flavor and is good at presenting the determination of drug traders to acquire a lot of dough.  Gene Hackman is perfect as Detective “Popeye” Doyle, but there is virtually nothing admirable about the man.  He stinks.

The movie is not as witty as some have believed.  The talk can be coarse and sophomoric, and it sometimes seems insufficient.  The urgent music is a bit overused, and . . .well, other blemishes in this demotic film are well catalogued.  On the other hand, it is a thrilling thriller.

Cover of The French Connection

There is global dissatisfaction with, even hatred for, Communist governments, for movies that express this have emanated from Russia, China, Cuba, Germany. Christian Petzold‘s 2012 Barbara is one such German film, as important as the others.

Nina Hoss enacts a thirtyish doctor living in East Germany in the 1980s. Her application to leave the country has compelled the government to send her to work in a rural hospital, but Barbara, the doctor, seeks to escape to the West. Communists in power, to her, are “assholes.” This means, even so, that Barbara will be leaving behind some broken people—patients—and her West German lover is willing to live with her in the Red East. Much is forcing her to make a difficult choice.

Having seen Barbara twice, I realize it is a small film. But also it is grave and uncompromising. And it is humanistic—humanistically anti-Red.

(In German with English subtitles)

Kris Kristofferson, as an ex-cop released from prison and now needing to rebuild his life, adds little to the film Trouble in Mind (1985). Divine (remember him?) adds even less.

Directed and written by Alan Rudolph, the picture is a weird film noir which grows dismayingly feeble and dopey. Rudolph does some nice things—images, I mean—with beautiful Lori Singer‘s face and body, but her role is hardly astutely created. Too bad I couldn’t know Trouble in Mind was trouble when it first walked in. (Apologies to Taylor Swift.)