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Das Experiment **/**** Image B+ Sound B+ starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Wotan Wilke screenplay by Don Bohlinger, Christoph Darnstädt, Mario Giordano, based on the novel by Black Box by Giordano directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel
by Walter Chaw Midnight Express with pretensions, Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Experiment is based loosely on Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, and Jaffe's "Stanford Prison Experiment," conducted in 1971 to test the reactions of twenty-four ordinary college students–some cast as prison guards, others incarcerated in a mock prison–paid fifteen dollars a day for their participation in the study. Having to end the experiment after only six days because of pathological prisoner reactions and sadistic guard reactions, the "Stanford Prison Experiment" remains one of the more ethically shaky mindfucks in Stanford's proud tradition of such things (my favourite of them being the one where experimenters tested men's "performance anxiety" while urinating in public restrooms)–a topic dramatic enough to merit a cinematic treatment, without question, but a treatment served poorly by the formula embellishments favoured by The Experiment.
For as long as Hirschbiegel remains faithful to actual events, The Experiment works with a queasy voyeuristic quality magnified by the use of surveillance camera footage and subjective, "God's eye" points of view. But the picture loses its way when it contrives to embellish upon a story that really doesn't need any sort of embellishment, manufacturing an avenging girlfriend character (Maren Eggert), a journalistic angle for gadfly protagonist Tarek (Moritz Bleibtreu), and a tension between the researchers in charge that culminates in attempted rape, an action movie chase, and an Attica-like revolt. The question of why a true story that's interesting enough to merit a screen translation is seldom interesting enough for filmmakers to resist making a stupid thriller out of it is one with particular currency in regards to The Experiment; more, when a movie about the roots of evil takes the easy way out, the price is potentially more grave than just the failure of a film: it all starts to smell a little like exploitation, after all.
THE DVD Lions Gate Entertainment presents The Experiment on a Canadian import DVD in a sharp 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen video transfer that looks a great deal like digital video, though the film appears to have been shot on 35mm. The effect is the same, as Hirschbiegel and DP Rainer Klausmann have lit the entire film in pale greens and washed-out yellows that replicate a sterile institutional feeling fairly convincingly. I have no complaints about the video quality, while the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack makes good use of its rear channels and atmospherics. A comprehensive "Production Notes" feature reads a lot like a press kit, while five trailers (one for Quebec, one for Germany, three for the United States)–the best, and best-looking, being the French-Canadian version–round out the disc.
114 minutes; R; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); German DD 5.1; English (optional) subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Lions Gate
