Das Experiment (2001)
(The Experiment)
Country: GER
Technical: col 119m
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Cast: Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Andrea Sawatzki, Maren Eggert
Synopsis:
A reporter now working as a cab driver allows himself to be used as a guinea pig in a two-week experiment during which scientists study the behaviour under pressure of subjects, eight of whom are to be prison guards looking after the other twelve. By day 4 a power struggle between a neurotic guard and the reporter prisoner, who is trying to provoke a disturbance for the sake of his story but who has problems of his own with authority, threatens to erupt into violence.
Review:
Gruelling but compelling exposé which shifts into thriller mode about two-thirds of the way through. Point of view at times shifts to surveillance cameras and the reporter's own modified spectacles-cum-VCR, adding to the feeling of lived reality, but the narrative at times hovers dangerously close to melodrama and one begins to wonder at the more excessive shifts of character among the guards after the good natured game-play of day 1. What comes over as totally convincing, however, is the premise upon which this fictitious piece of research is based: that human beings placed in this situation, albeit an artificial one and pace the catalytic rigging of the roles by the computer, will inevitably revert to type; i.e. the more the guards repress subversive elements among the prisoners, the more the latter will rebel. For dramatic purposes the filmmakers accelerate this descending spiral of behaviour and throw in the odd deus ex machina (e.g. a screwdriver). Note the identification of a tranquil beach with escape (as in Manhunter) for this largely landlocked culture.
(The Experiment)
Country: GER
Technical: col 119m
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Cast: Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Andrea Sawatzki, Maren Eggert
Synopsis:
A reporter now working as a cab driver allows himself to be used as a guinea pig in a two-week experiment during which scientists study the behaviour under pressure of subjects, eight of whom are to be prison guards looking after the other twelve. By day 4 a power struggle between a neurotic guard and the reporter prisoner, who is trying to provoke a disturbance for the sake of his story but who has problems of his own with authority, threatens to erupt into violence.
Review:
Gruelling but compelling exposé which shifts into thriller mode about two-thirds of the way through. Point of view at times shifts to surveillance cameras and the reporter's own modified spectacles-cum-VCR, adding to the feeling of lived reality, but the narrative at times hovers dangerously close to melodrama and one begins to wonder at the more excessive shifts of character among the guards after the good natured game-play of day 1. What comes over as totally convincing, however, is the premise upon which this fictitious piece of research is based: that human beings placed in this situation, albeit an artificial one and pace the catalytic rigging of the roles by the computer, will inevitably revert to type; i.e. the more the guards repress subversive elements among the prisoners, the more the latter will rebel. For dramatic purposes the filmmakers accelerate this descending spiral of behaviour and throw in the odd deus ex machina (e.g. a screwdriver). Note the identification of a tranquil beach with escape (as in Manhunter) for this largely landlocked culture.
(The Experiment)
Country: GER
Technical: col 119m
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Cast: Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Andrea Sawatzki, Maren Eggert
Synopsis:
A reporter now working as a cab driver allows himself to be used as a guinea pig in a two-week experiment during which scientists study the behaviour under pressure of subjects, eight of whom are to be prison guards looking after the other twelve. By day 4 a power struggle between a neurotic guard and the reporter prisoner, who is trying to provoke a disturbance for the sake of his story but who has problems of his own with authority, threatens to erupt into violence.
Review:
Gruelling but compelling exposé which shifts into thriller mode about two-thirds of the way through. Point of view at times shifts to surveillance cameras and the reporter's own modified spectacles-cum-VCR, adding to the feeling of lived reality, but the narrative at times hovers dangerously close to melodrama and one begins to wonder at the more excessive shifts of character among the guards after the good natured game-play of day 1. What comes over as totally convincing, however, is the premise upon which this fictitious piece of research is based: that human beings placed in this situation, albeit an artificial one and pace the catalytic rigging of the roles by the computer, will inevitably revert to type; i.e. the more the guards repress subversive elements among the prisoners, the more the latter will rebel. For dramatic purposes the filmmakers accelerate this descending spiral of behaviour and throw in the odd deus ex machina (e.g. a screwdriver). Note the identification of a tranquil beach with escape (as in Manhunter) for this largely landlocked culture.