The Experiment
|
List Price: Our Price: $15.99 You Save: $13.96 (47%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.86 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Experiment
Movie Review: great movie, but amazon not so great!
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie was great! However the experience was negative as I paid $26 from Amazon for this DVD and the day I received it was now selling for $8.70. Almost impossible to give that feedback to Amazon via their system. Would think twice before I make another purchase. I have been a loyal customer in the past.
Les Marshall Tasmania Australia.
Movie Review: Ja gut
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very good movie, what starts out as a "joke" turns into a real life situtation, things go way out of control. Actors do real good job in playing their parts. Loved watching it!Movie Review: the experiment
Summary: 4 Stars
Nothing wrong with the delivery and the quality of the film.
Delivery adequate.
Movie Review: Message film with great performances
Summary: 3 Stars
"Das Experiment" is an often grueling excursion into the dark recesses of the human psyche. Modeled on a controversial project that took place at Stanford University in 1971 (EVERY review mentions this little factoid, don't they?), the movie attempts to take a serious look at the human need for power over other people. Since the film is German, comparisons to fascism and National Socialist Germany are impossible to ignore. Do we really need another film reminding us of the dangers of fascism? Apparently so, even though the constant harping on this theme quickly becomes tiresome to the nth degree. Personally, I would like to see more films dealing with the dangers of communism and rampant leftism, but I am probably in the minority with this opinion. Anyway, "Das Experiment" the movie works well enough despite the usual clichés associated with the old "humans run wild" motif. As I watched the film I could never shake the impression that I had seen this same film in another form somewhere else. That sensation came about because I have seen these same themes in numerous other film and television projects. Meet Tarek Fahd. This young chap ostensibly works as a taxi driver, but he is actually a journalist attempting to come up with a gangbuster story that will put him on the map at the local paper. In an effort to make his career, Fahd signs on as a guinea pig for a famous psychologist's latest experiment. After a wearisome round of rigorous physical and mental tests, the journalist and several other people make the grade and learn what the experiment is about. According to the good doctor and his staff, Fahd and his fellow volunteers will stay in a mock prison for two weeks. Eight of the men will assume the role of guards, and the other twelve will serve as the prisoners. Strict discipline, rigid rules, and actual lockdowns will govern the lives of the prisoners in this experiment. The guards have the power to punish anyone who misbehaves (with moderation, of course) and must learn to distance themselves from their charges both physically and mentally. At first, keeping the two groups segregated is a bit of a problem, but as the days pass it becomes easier and easier to see the "convicts" as contemptible and thus deserving of their degraded position.
As the guards and prisoners begin to drift into their respective roles, big problems develop. One of the screws, a smelly, timid fellow named Berus, lets the power associated with his status as a guard go to his head. It's easy to see how such a process comes about, after all, since the guy is essentially a nobody in the outside world. In the prison, he's a big shot wearing a uniform, a badge, and possesses the ability to punish others. Berus's main rival among the prisoners is Fahd, who constantly berates the man and picks fights over a host of minor issues. Insults, defiance, and outright violence result from these confrontations, and the other guards and inmates are soon sucked into the fray. Even the staff monitoring the situation soon discovers the folly of this ill-conceived experiment as Berus and the guards go way beyond the parameters assigned to them at the beginning of the project. Deaths result as the experiment progresses, naturally, as does a big showdown between Berus and Fahd at the end where the film pounds the necessary messages into the heads of the viewers. A subplot involving Dora, a woman Fahd met immediately before enrolling in the experiment, inserts itself at crucial moments in the movie.
I am slightly critical of the film's message, but I did like it as a whole. I think it was the performances that won me over in the end. Although the dialogue is in German, the emotional turmoil all of the characters undergo comes through crystal clear. I even had some surprising sympathy for the Berus character. I was ambivalent about Fahd. He is the hero of the story, the caring journalist who exposes the abuses of the psychological study to the larger world, but he is also the one who bears a major responsibility for the ensuing chaos. In order to get the big story, Tarek must work hard at upsetting his fellow inmates and the guards so he can spice up his article. He constantly pushes everyone's buttons, so much so that his bunkmate eventually reveals a secret in an effort to get the reporter to knock it off. By the time Tarek Fahd ends up in the black box, I felt completely indifferent to his character while feeling an immense amount of empathy for the suffering of his fellow prisoners. His performance, however, achieves just the right balance of cellblock malcontent and horrified observer.
Watch "Das Experiment" if you like compelling psychological thrillers, but don't expect to see things you haven't seen elsewhere. The movie is shocking at times, and during the last thirty minutes it is downright riveting. The DVD edition of the film boasts a few trailers for other movies and a widescreen picture transfer. After viewing the film, I asked myself whether I would buy a copy of the movie. The answer was a resounding no; one time through was enough for me. I suggest renting first since the film's bleak atmosphere and graphic violence could turn off many viewers. "Das Experiment" isn't the sort of happy go lucky film you would want to watch repeatedly. If you do want to indulge in repeat viewings, you probably have a psychological problem of your own to deal with.
Movie Review: Disorientation, Depersonalization & Deindividualization.
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie demonstrates how quickly a prisoner, no matter from what walk of life, can become disoriented, depersonalized, and deindividualized, and likewise, no matter from what stratum of life, how a prison guard can turn into a sadistic person.
This German movie, "Das Experiment" or "The Experiment" in English, is based on a 1971 experiment that was headed by Dr. Philip Zimbardo and took place in the Standford University Psychology Department.
The Stanford experiment was funded by the U.S. Navy in an attempt to understand conflicts within its prisons and, perhaps, in other U.S. military prisons.
The participants for that experiment, like in the movie, were recruited via a newspaper ad which offered compensation for participating in a two-week experiment whereby some of the participants would be relegated to the role of a prison guard and the rest to the role of a prisoner.
In the movie, twenty (20) people were selected, and of the twenty people, eight (8) of them were given the role of prison guards, while the rest were given the role of prisoner.
Like in the Stanford University experiment, the scientists in the movie version created a life-like prison, and the guards were given a number of rules (around or exactly 6 in the movie) that they were told to be sure that the prisoners follow. One of the main rules in the movie given to both the prison guards and the prisoners was that NO violence was to be used.
However, the experiment went awry, escalated too fast into first humiliation and then violence, and ended with the death of two people. (The Stanford experiment also ended early because of the quick escalation into extreme forms of sadism, and it was terminated within six days without anyone dying.)
In the movie, the chief scientist/psychologist in charge of the experiment would not stop the experiment, even after his scientific collegues, who aided him with it, stated that the experiment was spiraling out-of-control and should be stopped. The movie's chief scientist's hubris was so great that he could only focus on getting a report done on the psychological effects from the experiment that he believed would bolster his career, and thus, he wanted the experiment to be done to completion (i.e, the full 14 days).
The experiment, however, spiraled so fast out-of-control that he was forced to end it.
Although this movie is based on the Stanford University Psychology Department's experiment of 1971 to study cognitive dissonance and the power of authority, at the very least, this experiment, as portrayed in the movie, is also reminiscent of Dr. Stanley Milgram's famous Yale University experiment of 1963. In that experiment, Dr. Milgram demonstrated that the vast majority of people will follow authority figures, even if it means acting against their moral conscience. (See Dr. Milgram's experiments, which have been replicated around the world with the same result.)
In sum, this movie shows how quickly a person from any stratum of society can become disoriented, depersonalized, and deindividualized as a prisoner, while, on the other hand, can also quickly turn into a sadistic person as a prison guard.
As for the acting, it was superb, especially that of Moritz Bliebtreu, who played one of the leading characters, as prisoner number 77, and that of Justus von Dohnanyi, who played one of the leading and the most sadistic prison guards.
I recommend this film for those interested in psychology and have read up on the Stanford University experiment that it was based on, as well as Dr. Milgram's experiment regarding the power of authority. Otherwise, this film may simply come across as disturbing.