Bleak viewing but rewarding

This is one of those films that haunts your dreams with its images. Heartbreaking, full of sadness and death. Boys of 16 dying horribly, coughing blood, while fellow patients look on wondering if their fate is the same. It?s a story of forbidden love, sacred and profane, of guilt and longing. Repression and betrayal. Crime and punishment. The climax is shocking. We bear witness like those children and weep for them. The young leads all perform superbly. And it looks starkly beautiful.