Death and the Maiden

Signourney Weaver plays Paulina a woman who had suffered torture and rape by a doctor, during the revolution, when she worked for an underground newspaper and was "arrested" She refused to tell the name of her leader, the man that is now her husband

The movie is set in "A country in South America, after the fall of dictatorship" Paulina is seen preparing for the arrival of her husband Gerardo Escobar ( A lawyer & civil right activist), making dinner and listening to the radio. A story on the news concerning a formation of a commitee on human rights violations that'll investigate acts of tortures commited between 1975-1980 comes on, she looks uncomfortable and goes to switch it off, then hears her husband is being considered to chair the commitee (news to her) and rumor has it that he has accepted.

The power goes out, and she continues to wait for Gerardo, an unfamiliar car pulls up to the house, she runs around blowing out the candles and grabs a gun. But it's just Gerardo, their car had a flat and he hitched a ride with a doctor (Roberto Miranda) who also has a house nearby.

They fight about the comission. Paulina thinks it's whitewash, and 'dignifying a betrayal" "What'll happen to the men they can prove were on the death squads?" she askes "the evidence will be turned over to the courts" says Gerardo, Paulina scoffs "Maybe over the judge who told Maria Bautista, no her husband wasn't tortured, he just ran off with a younger woman." It'll only involve cases that ended in death for the victim, Gerardo says he has get the president to change the rules, but to Gerardo it's a job worth doing.

A car again pulls up to the house, and Paulina wakes Gerardo, they hide in the dark looking out the window. Someone knocks on the door, it's the doctor again, Gerardo has forgotten to take his tire, he also wanted to tell Gerardo what an honor it is to meet him. "But do you know to know the truth, the real real truth?" The doctor asks, Paulina is listening from the bedroom and gasps when she hears him, his voice, his laugh (he snorts when he laughs) and 'the real real truth"
She finds other things, like his smell, he likes to quote Neitzsche " I think it was Neitzsche..." and he has a tape of Schubert's Death and the maiden in his car. The music which "the doctor" played during the torture and rape.

Is he the doctor, or not?

Receives great direction from Roman Polanski, great preformances from Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley & Stuart Wilson. A well done mystery that'll leave you guessing till the end.

Even with the knowledge of the outcome, it is still a movie I can enjoy watching over and over. :-)

Sigourney Weaver gives a raw-edged performance almost entirely in one key. She plays a woman (Pauline Escobar) who was raped and tortured by a Nazi-like doctor named Roberto Miranda played by Ben Kingsley in some unidentified South American country. Since Dorfman is from Argentina, we'll assume it's Argentina. Certainly this sort of thing happened there during the time of the "Disappeared." The other member of the three-person cast is her husband (Gerardo Escobar) played by Stuart Wilson. Roman Polanski directed.

The title comes from Franz Schubert's string quartet of the same name which was played by the doctor as he tortured Pauline.

This is a polarizing film. Women who have ever suffered anything at the hands of men will identify with Weaver's character and may find the film brilliant. Most men will not even be able to watch it.

There is some ambiguity in the ending, as to whether Roberto really was guilty as charged. My opinion is that he was without doubt. The final scene (which I can't describe since it would give away too much) is really a statement about the nature of horror and how it can live on amidst the most familiar settings, a man patting his son on the head, some people attending a concert.

I thought Wilson gave the most balanced performance. He had the most difficult role since it required subtlety and that he walk a fine line between accepting something monstrous in his presence or disbelieving his wife. He also had to be a weak sister, as it were, to the dominating presence of Sigourney Weaver who played most of the film with a gun in her hand. Yet he had to provide the strength of character and to symbolize the sense of justice. Kingsley looked very much the part of a sneaky little man, and his usual caged intensity was much in evidence.

Bottom line: any film that exposes the atrocities committed by the right wing dictatorships that dominated South and Central American during the Cold War is on the side of the angels; however most viewers I think will find this too intense and disturbing. Beware of some crude sexuality.