This is a rough movie to watch. Violence in it isn't just graphic, but psychological also. We are in the mind of a teen killer with any emotion or empathy towards the people around him; The worst of all is that, at one point, you can feel some empathy for Bruno. Based on a true story, this film is a detail journal of how a little boy became a killer. With a slow pace, the film involves you and in the shocking parts, it doesn't have any mercy: you will see in detail how evil can show its face in the most violent way possible.

Chilling, disturbing, the true face of horror. Not for all audiences, not destined to be a blockbuster, you think of Robert Bresson cinema, very raw, austere, shorn, the true story of a young boy who became a killer. It may be seen as a documentary, about how people lived in those days, early 1900's in the deep French countryside, and above all a deep analysis of the human nature, thru the picture of this young boy. The off voice is more than useful, disturbing, shocking, incredible to hear and believe but true. This young boy, in a class room, among his fellow eight or ten years old students, who deeply thinks about killing them, slowly and with the feeling of excitment. From a true story. I have never felt so unconfortable in my movie goer 59 years life. Never. The contrast between the quietness of the countryside charm and the nasty, unbearable, unforgettable atmosphere is purely indescribable.

The title of this review in my opinion sums up a lot, if not all of the film. The lead actor and the director are both new to me, and both I sense intuitively should work together again. From the opening and shocking sequence; explicit without being totally explicit I was caught up in the drama of this 17 year old and his need to murder. The ending in my opinion should have been as less explicit as the opening, as so called evil actions are better shown obliquely than head on in serious films. Less for me equals more and this is why I have given it a 9 instead of a full 10. To give some idea without spoilers it became Pasolini's ' Salo ' instead of the near Bresson film that I had watched so far. The question asked throughout is why this teenager in 1905 should have wanted to kill a child of 12, and frankly despite all efforts to make Bruno Reidal, the killer, give an answer to this the more the reason becomes elusive. For instance why should Bruno have homicidal fantasies instead of sexual ones during his compulsive acts of masturbation ? Was it due to his religious aspirations and the heavy weight of the Church ? Was it his ( to me ) unfounded belief that he was not good looking ? Could he only satisfy his guilt ridden desires for handsome men by imagining their torture and death instead of their sexual pleasure ? As I watched this beautifully filmed story I was not as appalled by Bruno as perhaps I should have been and that was due to his very real love for a youth called Blondel. Sadly that love was tainted by sadistic fantasies as well. I am not keen on the ' bad ' seed theory of evil in people, but the sheer, and to me overdone horror of the ending could easily reinforce that theory in viewers. A brilliantly made film accentuated by Olivier Messiaen's music and with images sometimes worthy of Caspar David Friedrich had me for the most part spellbound. One final point; this should not be put into any simplistic Gay interest category. If anything it is a deeply questioning religious film, and the repressions are as heterosexual as well as being homosexual.