Das Experiment

The most chilling vision to emerge from the Fatherland since Herr Effenberg began storming his jack-booted path through Bundesliga defences, Das Experiment is a darkly intense and deeply disturbing excavation of the limits of human behaviour.

Oliver Hirschbiegel’s feature is harrowing, yet far from gratuitous in its depiction of violence and degradation.

Based on Zimbardo’s notorious Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, the film features a study of group dynamics, in which the volunteer subjects are divided into prisoners and their guards. Like the study which inspired it, the participants ‘become’ their roles to a dangerous degree – but by sensibly relocating the action to contemporary Germany, Das Experiment attains a Teutonic discipline and ferocity which lends it disquieting historical resonances, echoing the unremitting brutality explored in Goldhagan’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners.

Run Lola Run hero Moritz Bleibtreu stars as Tarek, a former journalist who sees the possibility of a comeback scoop in an advertisment for test participants in a mock penetentiary environment.

At first the atmosphere is positively jovial and relaxed enough for one of the guards – a German Elvis impersonator – to share his ‘gift’ with fellow guards and prisoners alike: Tarek even begins to act as instigator in order to spice up the story.

Soon however, the line between reality and role-playing becomes blurred and as the tension escalates, the guards and in particular their effective leader Berus (von Dohnanyi in a fantastically ferocious performance) inflict increasing levels of humiliation on their charges.

While it might be argued that Das Experiment trades in generic types, the director’s deft handling of the transition into chaos makes this a claustrophobic and tense action movie, as well as a credible and challenging dramatisation of the evils that can flourish when autonomy is completely sacrificed in the name of social conformity.

The result is utterly compelling, somehow finding humour as well as horror in the interplay between the caged ‘rats’ and their oppressors, and making current televised social experiments such as Big Brother look like the facile wastes of time and energy that they truly are.

Hardly family viewing then, but a masterpiece of a kind nonetheless.