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Das Experiment Do the clothes really make the man? Or, perhaps a more interesting question is, will a person given a specific role behave in a predictable way? We've all heard about behavioral experiments that set up specific dynamics causing people to act one way or another. For example, telling a classroom of children that everyone with brown eyes is special and gets privileges not given to the other children, will eventually cause the blue-eyed kids to shrink away from confrontations with their recently "promoted" peers.
"Das Experiment," a film by Oliver Hirschbiegel, uses one such behavioral experiment as a background for a riveting and intense thriller.
A group of men volunteer to take part in an experiment. They are warned again and again that their basic human rights will be forfeit during the experiment, given a battery of computerized psychological tests, and have their health carefully scrutinized by a team of doctors. Eventually, the group is cut down to only twenty men. Twelve of these men are stripped down and given smocks and flip-flops to wear. They are also given numbers to be used in place of their names. They are the prisoners. The other eight are given uniforms and the responsibility to keeping the prisoners in line. They are the guards.
Inside of a testing facility, far from the eyes of anyone from "the outside world," these twenty men are set loose, observed by cameras and psychologists, but mostly left to their own devices. How the men act, given their assigned roles, is what the psychologists hope to learn, and it provides the first push that gives "Das Experiment" its momentum, which builds slowly towards a cruel, unstoppable climax.
It seems almost inevitable that a confrontation will arise between the groups. The test might have even been designed for such a event, especially when one of the prisoners, a reporter working undercover (Moritz Bleibtreu, recently seen in "Run Lola Run") has a personality that predisposes him to causing trouble. And, on the other side, one of the guards (Justus Von Dohnanyi), seems like the perfect candidate for absolute power corrupting absolutely.
What makes "Das Experiment" so effective is that in addition to being a surprisingly tense thriller, it also nudges its audience into asking a few questions of their own. If given the role of a prisoner, how much would you be willing to put up with, just to keep the peace with the guards? As a guard, would you be able to suppress your more cruel instincts, knowing that your behavior was allowed, even encouraged?
And, then there are the characters. Every one of them in "Das Experiment" is satisfyingly human, well-acted, and completely believable. Almost immediately we are given a chance to bond with the prisoners, but then, we're also given a chance to see the guards as people, not just viscous animals. None of them are perfect, and aside from the man who eventually comes to lead the guards, none of them are particularly hard to fault for their behavior. The prisoners, although they shouldn't, push and test the guards. The guards, fearing that their failure to keep the prisoners in line will disqualify them from the experiment, react accordingly. Before the audience knows what's happening, a line is crossed, and these two groups are set on an inevitable course that will lead to violence.
So, what would you do in that kind of position? Where would your loyalties take you when push finally comes to shove? "Das Experiment" might help you answer that question for yourself, but then again, it might just have you asking it over and over again. How many movies do that?
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