Customer Reviews

The Experiment

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Most of the other reviews here describe the film, and I agree with most of the reviewers that DAS EXPERIMENT is a masterpiece (with a few flaws). But should you buy it? After seeing the film in a cinema, I was impressed but also a bit shaken, and didn't feel that I would want to see it again. As it turned out, a friend borrowed it on DVD for us to watch, and it was even better the second time round, despite knowing and fearing the plot. A lot of details come into focus, and although it is still powerful stuff, you have more time to think about the bigger picture, to laugh at the humour (it's there!), and to take a bit of shameful pleasure when tables turn. In fact, I now consider it to be a film to watch at (longish) intervals, and it is high up on my DVDs-to-buy list.

I watched this movie only because I was interested in the concept, but, it blew my mind. It exceeded my expectation much higher. Good dialogue, characterization, acting. Story development was well paced; it gave me enough time to get into the character. Towards the end, I was breathing as hard as No. 77...couldn't wait to get out of the building.

I thought it was sort of a modern version of 'Lord of the Flies', describing one of the aspects of human psych. It also made me think of 'Blue Eye', a TV documentary of a psychological experiment in a primary school, dividing a class to a 'blue eye' team and 'the rest'. In this doc, teacher makes blue eye team superior for half a day, do the opposite in the afternoon, make kids to experience what happens. This teacher taught psychology in jail same way, it was almost scary how people get effected by 'the game' (she noted this experiment has to be done very carefully and has to be use right).

Anyway, I recommend 'The Experiment' strongly, especially those who likes the kind of movie like 'Cube'. It was one of the most exciting thrillers than many big budget Hollywood ones.

this movie somehow reminds me of the abuse and humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib....

This was the first movie, in a long time, where I was jumping up and down on the couch, I found myself screaming at the characters and was genuinely enthralled in the drama and action. This was not a very predictable movie; it was a bit twisted. Without giving away too much, the movie is set on a sociologists experiment. Everyday Joes are placed into a would be prison setting. It is interesting to see how some become intoxicated with the power they now have. The prisoners are forced to also pitted against their own fears. I would watch this over and over again. One of my my favorite films!!!

If you think that all the theorems about the final aspects of the violence had been expossed before, watch this movie.
In the best tradition of the greatest films that explored this same object, let`s name the obligated references Shock corridor (Fuller),The chase (Artur Penn) , Straw dogs (Sam Peckinpah), Even dwarfs started small (Werner Herzog )The clockwise orange (Kubrick) , Cuckoo`s nest(Foreman) , The brutalization of Franz Blum (Reinhard Hauff) , Do the right thing (Spike Lee), Trainspotting (Danny Boyle), and The believer (Henry Bean),the insight landscape made by this work is really absorbing . The camera work is exceptional. The performances and thge script are superb. With special mention to both of the meaning roles. The concept of authority, and the fact of owning altough fifteen days , and how this circunstance slowly permeates the shadow places of the soul, showing how the human being can become in a true animal, just for that little amonut of power who seems to design a God`s messenger, or any religion.
In many aspects the film is a true collage of many relevant facts that the use of the violence and the resistence to it, can affect the psiquis , the behavior and the ethics of any human being in similar conditions, the horror (do you remember the last Brando`s speech in Apocalyse now?), the supreme efforts to surviving above all the troubles, the great support of the memory in circunstances beyond the edge conditions.
After watching the film you must remember Hobbes , and Orwell`s nightmares (Animal`s farm), because the message in this sense goes beyond the anechdotical story. Don`t think it just a simple horror film .
Gaston Bothoul, in his fundamental work "The war phenomen" (from the early seventies), tells us among other interesting items the long interval of peace in the world has been only two hundred years, so when you listen again about someone who dares call Aquiles like the cities`destructor, you should set this observation under a several analysis.
I don`t think you stay indifferent after watching it. It`s a devastating movie. And not for all tastes. But if you really face the hidden facets of the human being, his transformation under special circunstances, don`t miss it. And either think about the film like a peace`s aphology.
And above all what it shows the film at its end it`s the powerful message that nobody`s innocent, in the wider sense of the word.

"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.

Based on the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, this remarkable German film manages to deftly combine thriller, sci-fi, social commentary & character study into one. The premise is simple: a group of men volunteer to take part in an experiment where they are placed in an prison & divided into groups of "guards" & "prisoners" for two weeks to study aggressive behaviour within the prison environment.
None of them have been in prison before. Occupations range from teacher to taxi driver & even a professional Elvis impersonator!
The only catch is that by taking part in the program & becoming prisoners, the men are automatically stripped of all their civil rights for that time period, & have their names replaced with numbers. Unfortunately the "guards" start taking their responsibilities too far & cross the line into violence & repression.
What the men AREN'T told is that only one of them will stand a chance of getting out alive with the money: everyone else must die, so soon both groups are fighting within their own ranks too. It's at this point that some of the men decide it's time to start fighting back, as it appears that if they remain passive they won't survive the fortnight behind bars.
Among the prisoners is an undercover reporter looking for a story, and if he survives this could land him a front page exclusive.... but his fellow prisoners aren't too keen on him cashing in on their misery when they find out so this places him at an even greater risk.
Absorbing & quite disturbing at times, THE EXPERIMENT rates as one of the best movies I've seen in 2003. The movie is subtitled, I'm not sure if it's also available in an English language version. Brilliantly Directed, filmed & written this is a movie that will stay with you long after the end credits have rolled. A must-see.
DVD extras include interviews, a beind the scenes doco & trailers.

Oliver Hirschbiegel's film 'Das Experiment' is loosely inspired by the famous (infamous?) Stanford Experiment of 30 years ago. In that experiment, students at the university were housed for a few weeks in a make-shift prison, to see what happens to the mentality of the inmates and guards as they adjust to their new roles. The experiment itself had many flaws, and is hardly representative of prison life in general (or boot camps, or other such environments), but did serve to highlight some of the problems that are possible, and argues for some of the safeguards that are necessary.

Hirschbiegel's film departs from that experiment in key ways, but perhaps the primary way is by having an undercover journalist Tarek/Prisoner 77 (played by Moritz Bleibtreu) purposely trying to instigate problems to enable his story to have more substance. The primary protagonist to Tarek is the guard Berus (played by Justus von Dohnanyi), whose oppressive nature takes over.

The last half of this film is very violent, far more so than the Stanford Experiment ever became. The cinematography is a bit lacking - perhaps the German art-house intention was to make this a mock-documentary, at least at first, to draw the audience in before letting the situation get out of control, and by then it is too late (for the audience and for the characters). One does have to have a willing suspension of disbelief here, as the allowance for violence becomes almost a parody (after all, this is supposed to be a in Germany sensitive to post-Holocaust issues such as letting guards have free and absolute reign over the subjects) - but perhaps that was part of the intention of Hirschbiegel, to let it serve as a reminder about how easily humanity can slip back into such roles.

The film suffers from lack of character development, as the plot and substance of the film is event-driven rather than personality driven; the undercurrents are lacking, and occasional subplots are introduced that do not really help the film along. Some judicious editing and perhaps a few character development scenes, at least of the major characters, would be helpful in getting the audience to understanding the underlying motivations. Again, perhaps the intention of Hirschbiegel was to argue that this could happen to any group of men, regardless of background or personality, but that is a bit lost here.

Overall, I tentatively recommend this film, but give strong warning for both the psychological and physical violence portrayed as sometimes being beyond the necessary.

Totally gets you thinking about what you would do in that situation. Any movie that makes you think is good

This film is based on the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971 and the first part is somewhat faithful to how the experiment went. Of course this gives it the German Avant-garde treatment which makes it more interesting. The acting was good, especially Moritz Bleibtreu from Run Lola Run, and the others did a good job. Of course conducting this with Germans where study participants who play the "role" of guards quickly transform into fascists has an extra meaning. I thought Maren Eggert was good as Dora, Tarek's girlfriend. And contrary to some reviews the Dora element really added a lot to this film. I felt solidarity with the "prisoners" as they are humiliated and abused more and more as the film goes on. And what happens to the psychologists running the Experiment could be considered poetic justice. The ending was over-the-top, but it worked as a film. And just think of what actual prisoners have to endure every day.

I think the wider point is the human rights issue. Here in the US we have millions of people imprisoned, dehumanized, with no real rehabilitation, and we're all the worse off for it. One thing this (as well as the actual experiment) shows is we shouldn't let Psychologists control things either...because that industry is one of dehumanization in itself (drugs, coercion, institutions, etc.) What we need is a world run by human rights activists.