The experiment (film)

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Movie
Original title The experiment
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2001
length 120 minutes
Age rating FSK / JMK 16
Rod
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel
script Don Bohlinger ,
Christoph Darnstädt ,
Mario Giordano
production Marc Conrad ,
Norbert Preuss ,
Friedrich Wildfeuer
music Alexander Bubenheim
camera Rainer Klausmann
cut Hans Funck
occupation

The Experiment is a German film and psychological thriller by Oliver Hirschbiegel from 2001, based on the novel Das Experiment Black Box by Mario Giordano . The plot is based on the Stanford Prison Experiment from 1971, but the escalation shown goes beyond the events that actually took place. The initiators of the real experiment successfully sued against the subtitle “based on a true incident”.

action

Taxi driver Tarek Fahd discovers an invitation to an experiment in a newspaper advertisement. 4000  DM are offered for participation in the experiment in which a prison is simulated. Tarek participates as a journalist with a mini camera hidden in glasses. Shortly before the experiment, he had a traffic accident. He meets a woman named Dora. He spends a night with her and keeps thinking about her, as you can see in the film by looking back.

The 20 volunteer participants are divided into guards and prisoners and monitored by a team of scientists via cameras. Prisoners must forego some basic rights and follow certain rules, such as eating all of their meals and following all instructions from the guards, while instructing them to avoid any violations of the rules on the part of the prisoners and to react appropriately if a violation has been committed is or one is announced. Although they are equipped with batons, they are under no circumstances allowed to use force. At the beginning of the experiment, all participants are in a good mood. But that changes quickly when Tarek begins to provoke the guards with deliberate disobedience . The initial fun quickly becomes serious, as the psychological pressure increases enormously. The situation gets out of hand after a few days.

The guards took advantage of the unrest among prisoners to gain respect. Both the guards and the prisoners can be seen as calm outsiders who stay away from the rest of the group. On the part of the guards, it is the seemingly calm Berus, of all people, who gives the signal to turn around with a single sentence by saying, "I once read that in such cases you regain control over humiliation." For a moment, the guards are using increasing violence against the prisoners.

A dispute arises in the team of scientists about how long the experiment can be carried out. Dr. Jutta Grimm pleads for an immediate termination, but cannot prevail against the lead professor Thon, who is not present due to other obligations when the violence approaches its climax.

Dora finds Tarek's contract and uses the visiting time granted. Tarek asks the fearful guard Bosch to secretly slip a message to his visit. However, Berus becomes aware of this, takes Bosch's place and reassures Dora by saying that everything is okay.

The situation continues to escalate and the violence is increasing. The prisoners are injured and humiliated. Most of the violence hits the rebellious Tarek. First the guards shave his skull and urinate on his head, then he has to clean the toilet with his shirt. Finally they lock him in the so-called black box (a camera silens ). Tarek managed to break free by a lucky coincidence, because he found a screwdriver behind the insulation. Inmate Schütte is beaten up and handcuffed and gagged on a chair. He suffocates as the blood coagulates in his nose.

Bosch is beaten up by the other guards for his "betrayal" and locked up with the other prisoners. The assistant Lars notices this on the surveillance monitors and tries in vain to reach the professor. The guards, who know that Professor Thon cannot be reached, are convinced by Berus that it is a test of how they react to external influences. You take control and lock Lars in with the prisoners. A little later they also take Dr. Trapped Grimm and imprisoned them too.

Dora, who has meanwhile come back to the university, is distracted by Berus and locked in a room. When Tarek freed himself from the black box, hectic breaks out. With the help of the screwdriver he opens the back wall of a prison cell and escapes with the other prisoners who are still alive. Professor Thon hears the desperate message from Lars on his mailbox and immediately rushes to the institute. Guard Eckert, who took a gas pistol with him at the beginning of the test, accidentally shoots him in the face and knocks him down with it. The guards pursue the prisoners and there is brutal hand-to-hand fighting. Eckert, who previously tried to find Dr. To rape Grimm is killed by Bosch in supposed self-defense with a fire extinguisher . Only when Dora, who has smashed the glass door of the room, finds the pistol and uses it to distract the guards and prisoners fighting in the basement of the university, can the violence finally end. Berus, who tried to murder Tarek, is taken away by the police. Dora and Tarek go on vacation to the beach.

background

The film and novel are based on a real experiment carried out in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University under the direction of Philip Zimbardo . The Stanford Prison Experiment was discontinued after 6 out of 14 planned days after it was no longer morally acceptable. In the film, the escalation only ends after the deaths and serious injuries have occurred. Since the actions in the film go beyond the real model, Zimbardo successfully sued the subtitle of the film "based on a true story".

The song One Step Closer by the American nu metal band Linkin Park is the title track of the film and is included on the soundtrack, which was produced by WEA.

Reviews

Initially applauded by the audience as a German thriller in Hollywood format, critics were not very enthusiastic.

“The story, based on an actual series of experiments, develops into an individual confrontation between the 'good' victim and the 'bad' tormentor and ends in that voyeuristic violence that the film initially claims to question. Actually staged largely convincing and sometimes extremely oppressive, the film suffers from its not consistently well thought-out story. "

- Lexicon of International Films

Prism online though is the basic idea "because of its [ sic ] explosiveness quite exciting," but criticized the script "have unfortunately (...) so many weaknesses and [devices] just as out of control as the situation of the experiment. (...) If it weren't for the great actors - above all Moritz Bleibtreu - you could safely forget about the film. "

taz.de thinks, surprisingly, the film, like many commentators, ignores the political background and the dubious methods of Zimbardo's original experiment. Only a subordinate clause of the script refers to ominous funds from the Bundeswehr, but does not ask about their purpose. The conclusion: Psychological research as such is not questioned or reduced to the general human-pathological.

Awards

  • Bogey Award 2001
  • German Film Award 2001:
    • Best Actor : Moritz Bleibtreu
    • Best supporting actor : Justus von Dohnányi
    • Best production design : Uli Hanisch / Kessler Andrea
    • Audience Award: German Film of the Year
  • Bavarian Film Award 2001: Director Award , Screenplay Award , Camera Award
  • Bergen International Film Festival 2001: Audience Award
  • International Fantasy Film Award at Fantasporto 2002
  • International Istanbul Film Festival 2002: Audience Award
  • World Film Festival in Montréal 2001: Best Director
  • Jupiter Awards 2002:
    • Best German director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
    • Best German actor: Moritz Bleibtreu
  • "Predicate valuable" from the German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden
  • Nomination for the German Camera Prize 2001
  • Nomination for the European Film Award 2001
  • Nomination for the jury award at the AFI Fest 2001
  • Nomination at the Paris Film Festival 2003
  • Nominations for the Political Film Society Awards 2003:
    • Political Film Society Award for Human Rights
    • Political Film Society Award for Peace
    • Political Film Society Award for Democracy

Play and film location

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
  • The film is set in Cologne. The scene in which Prof. Thon greets the test subjects takes place in the large lecture hall of the Chemical Institute of the University of Cologne . In general, the mathematics and natural sciences faculty of the University of Cologne is the venue for the experiment.
  • Other scenes, e.g. For example, scenes in the cafeteria, the escape through the corridors or the scene in which Berus Dora unlocks the door “although it is actually not allowed” were filmed in the canteen building of the University of Wuppertal .

US remake

The US remake, The Experiment , was directed by Paul Scheuring in 2010 , but has a slightly different plot, different characters and a different ending.

literature

  • Reinhard Barrabas: Core areas of psychology. An introduction to film examples. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8252-3850-6 , pp. 75–80.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The experiment on the pages of the Lexikon des Internationale Films (accessed June 1, 2008)
  2. ↑ The experiment on the Prisma-Online website (accessed June 1, 2008)
  3. ↑ The experiment on the pages of taz.de (accessed October 27, 2014)