Product Description

A marriage becomes strained when the wife is confronted with a man she is convinced tortured and brutalized her when she was in jail years earlier.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16604 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2003-06-03
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 103 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Roman Polanski's film adaptation of Ariel Dorfman's stunning play about the legacy of torture has more in common with the director's first film, Knife in the Water (with all the latter's unnerving ambiguities about power, sexual transgression, and confused alliances among three people) than a straightforward political parable. Sigourney Weaver (a bit underwhelming in this role, but good overall) plays a former political prisoner in an unnamed South American country that has gone democratic. She is married to a government official (fine work by Stuart Wilson) heading up official inquiries into the practice of torture under the former regime. Still shattered by her experience, Weaver's character seeks safe haven in closets of the cliff-top house she shares with her husband. But when the latter comes home in the company of a seemingly nice fellow (a brilliant Ben Kingsley), she believes she recognizes the stranger as the interrogator who raped her repeatedly in prison. She violently takes him hostage, and what ensues is a hurricane of fury and confusion, as Kingsley's terrified character denies all accusations, Wilson's guilt-ridden spouse can't decide whom to defend, and Weaver turns her psychosexual rage into a weapon of humiliation. Dorfman adapted the screenplay himself, but there's no question that Polanski is leading us down a familiar path of human betrayal and terror that he crossed in such films as Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion, and Bitter Moon. At times stunning in its bluntness and compelling to the last, Death and the Maiden literally takes us to the edge of oblivion, where--in Polanski's films--the hardest truths always seem to fall into a heretofore unknown perspective. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
Roman Polanski has had a career of alarming symmetry: the spectacular rise from "Knife in the Water" to "Chinatown," then the steady decline from "The Tenant" to "Bitter Moon." And now this: Ariel Dorfman's fashionable, overblown stage play turned into a flat, uninspired thriller. The situation, involving a triangle of sex and suffering, sounds like classic Polanski, but the director seems oddly adrift from his material; the perverse, obsessive vigor of his younger years is gone. The ridiculous plot unfolds at a remote seaside house in an unnamed Latin American country. An attorney (Stuart Wilson) and his wife (Sigourney Weaver) receive a visit from one Roberto Miranda (Ben Kingsley). The wife, convinced that Miranda is the man who tortured and raped her during their country's era of oppression, determines to get her own back; but all she has to go on is his voice, and the movie titillates us with the possibility that she has the wrong man. A more vulgar director-and less serious performers-might have had the nerve to admit that this is schlock posing as moral philosophy, but Polanski and his cast honor the self-importance of the script, and the result is fairly unwatchable. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Sad and serious and ultimately meaningful on many levels
This 1994 film was adapted from a play by Argentinean playwright Ariel Dorfman and was directed by Roman Polanski. Set in an unnamed South American country, three people are thrown together in an isolated house on a dark and stormy night. The woman, played by Sigourney Weaver is clearly troubled and sad. Her husband, played by Stuart Wilson, is late for dinner. Turns out he had a flat tire and a stranger helped him out. That stranger, who is a doctor, played by Ben Kingsley, soon befriends the husband. The woman thinks the stranger is the man who tortured her while she was a political prisoner many years before.

There is a new kinder and gentler government now, which is investigating atrocities from the past. The woman's husband is in charge of the investigation, which is basically focused on identifying bodies and is giving amnesty to many of the worst criminals. Naturally this complicates the situation.

What follows is not a simple story though because, throughout, questions are raised that have no easy answers. Is the doctor really the torturer or an innocent man? After all, it all happened at least ten or more years in the past and the woman has never actually seen her torturer's face as she had been blindfolded the whole time. The doctor declares his innocence. At times, he's even charming. But she has tied him up and is determined to get a confession out of him.

There are many interwoven themes. The basic one is wondering if the doctor is, indeed, the right man. But then there is the relationship between the husband and the wife. We discover he and his wife were both members of the revolution but only she was caught and tortured. He has been trying to make that up to her for their whole marriage. We also get to hear a lot about the details of the torture. It is chilling and disturbing and, even though the only violence in the film is against the suspect who is tied up, the woman's prison experience, which is only talked about and not shown, is excruciatingly painful to hear about.

There are other questions raised too. What happens to a society when it gives someone power over a helpless person? Now, we see the woman with power over the tied-up doctor. And we are forced to think about how this kind of power corrupts a whole society. This is a concept that is universal, as fresh today as it has always been. And the director certainly knows how to bring it out. All of the actors were sensational. I soon forgot they were performing and was completely swept into the story. I could feel the pain of all three characters as well as the horror of the electric shocks of the past.

The title comes from a string quartet by Franz Schubert called Death and the Maiden. This piece of music had been played during the woman's torture. She has found a tape of it in the doctor's car and plays it throughout. It helps to frame the action, right down to the film's excellent and satisfying conclusion.

I was surprised to discover that this film had won no significant awards and got little recognition when it was released. It wasn't even given a high rating from the critics. That's too bad. I think that it is an important film. I'm glad I discovered it though. It's sad and serious and ultimately meaningful on many levels. And I give it my very highest recommendation.

Excellent Movie!
Sigourney Weaver plays a woman who was tortured by a doctor who worked for a fascist regime. They had control of an unnamed country in South America. Her husband was taken home by this man when his car got a flat. She recognized his voice and when he returned later in the evening she ties him up hoping to get a confession out of him.

This is an incredibly suspenseful story. I was intending to put it on pause to get something to eat but I got too involved in the movie. There is only three people in this film and two scene places, the house and their property. But despite the minimalism it's a riveting plot. If you watch it, I doubt if you will be disappointed.

Weaving the Maiden's Tale
This film is an utter masterpiece! Let's start with the plot- written by, and adapted from his own play by, Ariel Dorfman, the screenplay is wrought with twists and guilt and fear in almost every breath. Some find it a bit "stagy" but i couldn't see any of it! The direction- is wonderfully full of suspence, yet can be quite tender at times. Polanski knows his subject, knows what he's doing. The music- yes- the music! Written by Wojciech Kilar, who scored "Bram Stoker's Dracula", the music is very simple, yet extremely effective, and often moving. And finally- the acting- Stuart Wilson is very believable as Gerardo, and pulls off the feelings of guilt and anger very well. Ben Kingsley is startlingly acute in his performance as Miranda. He never allows any bias to enter his performance, so you are left guessing to the very end. And, of course, Sigourney Weaver. Who is simply AMAZING!! I knew she was a great actress, but she surpassed herself in this. The torture she goes through; the brief feelings of doubt, and then the dawning that this IS the man she wants. At least that's what she believes. This performance is so powerfull, so tender, so angry and so painfull, that if this were a bigger, studio film, Weaver would have finally walked off with an acadamy award. But, alas, the big studios cannot bring themselves to make movies that have so many strengths and so much to say. See this film. Learn and be amazed at the human beings it portrays. Do you recognise yourself in one of the characters?