Das Experiment

I just watched a rather strange film. I don't really know whether I enjoyed it. I think I nothinged it.

The film was Das Experiment, a German film from 2001, "loosely" (for legal purposes) based on the Stanford Prison Experiment (Wiki it)

It concerns Tarek Fahd, a taxi driver and ex-journalist who partakes in a prison-based experiment, in which two sets of people, chosen for their psychological stability, take the roles of guard and prisoner. They are put into these roles for 14 days, or two weeks in ordinary speak, and monitored at all times.

If you are unaware of the Stanford experiment, it basically went tits up. After two days, rioting happened, and persisted, and violence took hold.

The film approaches the subject mainly through the eyes of protagonist Tarek, but the antagonist Berus, who adopts the role of head guard. The story is sidelined at parts by flashes into the life of Tarek's potential girlfriend, Dora. These parts are odd, but are often well interjected into sleep sequences, as if Tarek can see the life he could be living. The juxtaposition of Dora and Tarek's loneliness plays an intersting part in moulding your emotional relationship with the pair.

The film uses a few different techniques to approach the maltreatment of the prisoners. You sometimes see it through Tarek's eyes, quite literally, as he takes in a pair of spy-spectacles in order to film what happens in the mock-prison. It sounds strange, but he is trying to re-spark his journalism career after he crashes his taxi (and then meets Dora yadda yadda yadda), and chooses this experiment as his 'comeback' story. The first person POV shots allow the characters to look directly into Tarek's eyes, attempting to create a closer link between the audience and the characters. The scenes of the guards attempts to create reasoning for their violence and torture are also interesting in the paranoia they encounter, thinking every move of the scientists behind the experiment is a 'test' and they should 'react accordingly' as per the rules.

In short, it's an odd film. I've used that word a lot. It being a foreign language film from 2001, I can't imagine many people will have easy access to this film without a purchase. I can reccomend a torrent, but that's illegal...init. It's worth seeing if you're interested in social experimentation, especially when it involves torture. It falls short of actual connection with characters, but still evokes emotional through shocking actions. I did enjoy it, on second thought, but mostly through winces and gasps than tears and the wrenching of my heart, which I feel it attempted at.