Young Törless

At a boarding school in the pre-war Austro-Hungarian Empire, a pair of students torture one of their fellow classmates, Basini, who has been caught stealing money from one of the two. The two decide that rather than turn Basini in to the school authorities, they will punish him themselves and proceed to torture the boy with ever-increasing sadistic delight. The third member of the group, Torless, observes rather than participates and frustrates the the other two by dryly analyzing their behavior.