What can be said about Buñuel’s “The Young One” that isn’t spotlighted in America’s jaded history with race and economics, for one – it’s hard not to think that the construction of this film doesn’t come from Buñuel’s first-hand witness of the identity politics in America, being that he for one fell from grace for not constructing himself under our “American” values while in his own pursuit of the “American” dream, being labeled a “anarchist” & “atheist” made him lose a lot of standing in his own community – but I believe it’s the path that led him to creating this greater conversational piece on “labels” in America. The film follows an “African American” man fleeing a crime he didn’t commit. We cycle through the lives of a poor man whose only exterior access is a young girl he has all the control over – eventually taking advantage of her, and the little girl, “the innocent”, whose economic status has led her to being omitted from growing up as a child – her womanhood comes before childhood. I believe Buñuel commits to these three characters to open a conversation about the cynicism in American values – that is, a society that presents itself to be so free creates so many restrictions in the economy, racial discrimination, & gender roles that there are zero outs to the cards you’ve been dealt – that your fated to the same small conditions our characters were left to in the island.