by BERTIE MANDELBLATT

A controversial experiment in human behaviour was conducted at Stanford University in the early ’70s, which inspired a novel, Black Box by Mario Giordano, which in turn now serves as the springboard for the surprisingly sophisticated German film Das Experiment. The experiment examined the behaviour of 20 men recruited to play the parts of prisoners and guards in a prison setting for a two-week period.

I’m always wary of narratives that try to prove a point about human psychology; it’s usually some trite universalist nonsense about sex or gender. In this film, however, the director and screenwriters have used the structural elements of the experiment—and its failure—to create a heartstopping thriller fuelled by the power of role-playing that escalates out of control.

The main character is Tarek (Moritz Bleibtrau), a cab driver who answers the ad recruiting participants for the experiment which offers 4000 DM in compensation. He also visits a newspaper editor he knows to sell his story (complete with pictures) for an additional 10,000 DM. After spending the night with a mysterious woman named Dora (Maren Eggert), Tarek enters the controlled compound in the role of prisoner. Immediately, he begins relentlessly provoking the guards, acting from both the need to generate a story he can sell and his own antagonism towards authority. The film follows the men over the next five days as individual characters emerge: an undercover army general, a fascistic airline employee, and an Elvis impersonator, among others. The scenario quickly surpasses anything the scientists, or Tarek, could have imagined, building up to torture and murder. The final scene is the strongest in the film—simple, taut and visually spectacular. Even the romance between Tarek and Dora, usually a weak link, is handled with enough delicacy here to provide an emotional counterbalance to the main action without descending to schlock.

And let’s face it, German actors in prison uniforms gives this exploration of aggression, responsibility and control a resonance it wouldn’t have if it were made elsewhere. :

Das Experiment opens Friday, October 18

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