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The somewhat familiar story of a well-to-do "good" boy who gets involved with a "bad" girl from the poor side of town. The story of Anders, a promising student and the apple of his parent's eye, and Gerd, a "wayward" girl who is the bane of her single mother's existence, "You little whore!" . . . "Whore's do it for money. I do it for pleasure!" Sound a bit like a bad "B" movie? It's not. At it's heart "Ung Flukt" is about the unnatural corrupting influence that "civilization" has on human beings, especially the young, rudderless, and in Gerd's case, fatherless. Anders, having had the benefit of a stable family life, has direction and purpose and it is his idealism that provides the source of conflict between him and his parents. He believes that if he could remove Gerd from her hazardous environment, he could save her. Is he motivated by love? Moral duty? A sense of righteousness? Gerd is in love with Anders but is frightened that he'll turn out like her other lovers, "You'll just use me while it's fun." In a bold move, Anders takes Gerd by surprise on a long trip into the forest, first by car and then by foot, to a cabin that he had visited with his Father. At first this environment seems harsh and unforgiving, "Is there no end to this forest of yours?" Gerd complains while finally getting rid of her cumbersome city shoes. "Soon you'll get used to it and will no longer need clothes." Soon the two lovers are running through the forest barefoot, swimming naked in the lake, happy and carefree under the warm sun. But clouds will eventually turn the sky gray and Gerd, like an addict, will be torn between the Good healthy life and a craving for the pleasures and conveniences of the city. Soon their parents will come looking for them. Soon a mysterious and dangerous stranger will enter their orbit and Anders will undergo a "rite of passage" for his manhood with Gerd hanging in the balance. A beautifully photographed and extremely well paced story that showcases the talents of a phenomenal actress, even at such an early stage in her career. Liv Ullmann delivers a positively scintillating and sexy performance as Gerd, one that would be emulated a year later, wittingly or unwittingly, by Lee Remick in Elia Kazan's "Wild River" in which Nature would also play a crucial role.

This documentary is a revelation for all of us who witnessed on our television sets the hi-jacking of the 1972 Olympics Games by Palestinian terrorists. The ineptness of the German's in every aspect of this tragedy is almost incomprehensible and certainly reprehensible. To hear the interviews with those Germans involved, one would be inclined to share in their obvious amusement at such incompetence were it not for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes. And so one watches this film in three stages, with sadness, disbelief and then anger. For those not yet initiated to the most tragic event in Olympic history, on September 5, 1972, a week into the Olympic Games in Munich, Palestinian terrorists entered the Olympic compound and held hostage 9 members of the Israeli Olympic team, after already killing two who attempted resistance. Their demands were the release of 200 terrorists held primarily by Israel. Israel maintained its policy of "no negotiations with terrorist" while the Germans, anxious to get on with the games, attempted to negotiate a settlement that was never possible. In the end they bungled a rescue operation and all the hostages were murdered. ONE DAY IN September takes a much closer look at the facts, which should be a revelation for those ignorant of the European history of appeasement and the current crisis between radical Islamists and the West. In their desire not to be a target for terrorism, after having three of the Munich terrorists in custody, Germany arranged for the hijacking of a commercial airliner as a means to release their captives with a fictional hostage exchange scheme. One of them still lives to "proudly" tell his tale. The other two were hunted down and killed by Israel, acts that no doubt sparked condemnation from Germany and the UN.

One of the greatest filmmakers of France, Henri-Georges Clouzot, makes a film about his friend Pablo Picasso, perhaps the 20th Century's most renown artist. Clouzot begins with a proposition: if one were present at the conception of a great artistic masterpiece such as Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, and could peek inside the mind of the artist, what would one see? Fortunately, the visual art of painting offers a filmmaker that insight, and so Clouzot begins with Picasso in a dark room with white light directed at an empty canvas. The artist, like a bullfighter, confronts and ultimately displaces the empty space with drama and suspense. Clouzot takes a minimalist approach which chooses to focus on the art rather than the artist, and he achieves this objective by having Picasso sit on one side of a translucent canvas, and the camera on the other capturing only the ink or paint that has been administered, without the distraction or impediment of the artist - pure creation. A window into the mind of the artist! Twenty artworks are created in this manner, each being overlayed with the often suspenseful sounds of Georges Auric's excellent score. With THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO, art becomes exhilarating as one attempts to anticipate what Picasso will do next. "How will he resolve this problem?" Clouzot has created a priceless document for anyone seriously interested in art.