Death and the Maiden (1994)

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Movie
German title Death and the Maiden
Original title Death and the Maiden
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1994
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Roman Polanski
script Rafael Yglesias ,
Ariel Dorfman
production Josh Kramer ,
Thom Mount ,
Bonnie Timmermann ,
Ariel Dorfman
music Wojciech Kilar
camera Tonino Delli Colli
cut Hervé de Luze
occupation
synchronization

Death and the Maiden is a cinema - drama after the eponymous play by Ariel Dorfman . The title goes back to the motif Death and the Maiden, known since the 15th century, and the related dramatic string quartet of the same name by Franz Schubert .

action

Five years after the end of the military dictatorship in a South American country not named in the film, the doctor Dr. Roberto Miranda, the lawyer and nominee chairman of the Committee to Investigate Human Rights Violations during the Military Junta, Gerardo Escobar, breaks down his car at night while driving him home.

Escobar's wife Paulina is firmly convinced that she recognizes Miranda as her tormentor, who tortured and raped her during her time as a member of the opposition . Determined to coax this confession from him, she threatens him at gunpoint and ties him up. She wants to remind him of the torture scenes. In addition she humiliates him; for example, by monitoring his use of the toilet during the night. Gerardo doesn't believe her at first, but then cooperates with her. Although Miranda even gives an alibi at dawn the next day by telephoning Gerardo to confirm that he was working in a clinic in Spain at the time in question , she still threatens to kill him.

When she tries to push him off a cliff , he finally confesses that he was her tormentor. He admits he enjoyed the rapes and has no regrets. Gerardo tries to push Miranda off the cliff, but fails; Paulina loosens Miranda's chains and goes away.

Both at the beginning and at the end of the film, Paulina and Gerardo sit in a concert hall and listen to the string quartet Death and the Maiden by Schubert. Miranda's eyes, who is sitting in a box to the side , cross with Paulina's.

Reviews

On the Internet as well as in TV magazines , the film is consistently staged as masterfully and rated as emotionally gripping.

“After an intimate play, an excitingly staged psychological thriller, the great cast and brilliant dialogues of which convey a concrete, haunting image of the endless agony of the abused victims and the inconspicuous nature of the perpetrator type on the screen . Worth seeing."

- Film Service (September 1995 edition)

“Roman Polanski shot an intensely staged psychodrama, which, however, as a result of the chamber play-like staging, is all too clear that it is a film adaptation of a play by Ariel Dorfmann. Nevertheless, Polanski managed an emotionally immensely gripping work about guilt, suffering and revenge. "

- Prism Online

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.

background

In South America, almost all states were ruled for a long period of time by right-wing military dictatorships supported by the United States in the 1970s and 1980s . Almost all of them used violence to suppress the mostly left-wing opposition. A common means of doing this was the secret abduction ( disappearance ) of unpopular people by members of the security forces who remained anonymous. The victims were during detention in secret prisons tortured most cruel and humiliated, often sexual, and then murdered in very many cases. During the military dictatorship in Argentina from 1976 to 1983 alone, up to 30,000 people disappeared in this way without a trace. Across Latin America, 50,000 people are estimated to have been murdered, 35,000 disappeared and 400,000 prisoners. After the transition of states to democracy, mostly in the 1980s and 1990s, the prosecution of such crimes was prevented for years in many countries by general amnesty laws for the perpetrators. At the time the film was made in the early 1990s, it therefore still seemed in many countries that the perpetrators would get away with absolutely nothing. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, however, the amnesties were retrospectively lifted in several countries , so that many former dictators and torturers have now been punished or are still on trial.

synchronization

The German synchronization was commissioned by Hermes Synchron in Potsdam , based on a dialogue book by Dr. Beate Klöckner and under the dialogue director of Clemens Frohman .

role actor Voice actor
Paulina Escobar Sigourney Weaver Hallgard Bruckhaus
Dr. Roberto Miranda Ben Kingsley Peter Matic
Gerardo Escobar Stuart Wilson Wolfgang Condrus

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death and the Maiden. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Entry on Prisma Online , accessed on March 8, 2015
  3. ↑ a b c d Federal Agency for Civic Education: 40 years ago: beginning of the military dictatorship in Argentina | bpb. Retrieved March 6, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Julio Segador: Working up in Chile - The long shadow of a bloody epoch. 2014, accessed on March 6, 2019 (German).
  5. ^ "Operation Condor": Terror in the Name of the State | tagesschau.de. September 12, 2008, accessed March 6, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Death and the Maiden in the German synchronous file , accessed on August 17, 2019.