If you have not noticed by now, most of my reviews,(at least for the time being) , besides film noir are on small budget movies with a limited cast. It always amazes me about how a director can do so much with few resources but with great actors.
When a veteran director creates a movie with two Hollywood heavyweights, we would be presented with a true nugget like Death and the Maiden. Director Roman Polanski’s movie is based on a play by Ariel Dorfman, a Chilean playwright. The three main characters in the movie are Paulina Salas(Weaver)the wife of a famous and respected lawyer, Gerardo Escobar, her husband and Roberto Miranda, a doctor.
The opening scene begins with a choir of four musicians playing, you’ve guessed it, Death and the Maiden(D&M). D&M is a composition by Austrian composer Franz Schubert. After the musical flourish, we are taken to a seaside cottage in an unnamed South American country where a rein of dictatorship has just ended. A storm is in effect and as waves crash the shores, and rain pours, we see a busy Paula setting a the dinner table. The radio plays in the background, speaking of the human rights commission investigating crimes of the previous government and of accidents caused by the storm.
In a flash, the power goes down and darkness envelopes the house. The storm brings down the phone lines too. Paula finishes her dinner alone and steps outside on he porch, to survey the storm.
A car approaches from a distance and unnerves her. Quickly she steps inside, blows out the candles and grabs a handgun and hides behind a window. The car stops in her drive way. Gerardo, Paula’s husband steps out of the passenger’s side. We see that he has got a ride from another gentleman. A conversation between the men, reveals that the other man is Dr. Roberto Miranda. The car leaves as Geraldo calls out to Paula who lets him in.
Geraldo informs Paula that his car broke down and the gentleman gave him a ride home. Geraldo then tells Paula that he has turned down the President’s offer to head the human rights commission This angers Paula. Moments later, as the couple reconcile, they are once again unnerved by the sound of an automobile. There is a knock on the door and Geraldo realizes that it is the gentleman who dropped him off earlier has returned.
Geraldo asks Paula to remain in the bedroom and that he would handle the situation. He opens the door and lets the man in. The man tells Geraldo that he went home and then realized that he still had Geraldo’s tire in the boot.
Next we see Paula who overhears the men talk from an adjacent room, pack a back, collate all the money she can, storm out of the house through a back door and drive away in the stranger’s car. The man calls out to her that it is his car and asks her to come back.
Both men are stunned by this irrational behavior, but quickly gain composure and make themselves comfortable in the house with drinks and an awkward conversation. We see more strange behavior from Paula. She parks the car over a cliff, not far from the cottage gets off and then pushes the car down the cliff into the waters below.
Returning to the house, gun in hand, she finds the man sleeping on her couch. She observes him closely for a few moments and then stiffs him. As the startled man wakes up, she knocks him out, cold with her gun and binds him with telephone wires.
Next she hoists him onto a chair, binds his mouth with duck tape and then uses the tape to tie the to the chair.
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, Stuart Wilson
Director: Roman Polanski
What would drive a seemingly normal housewife to go to such lengths? The answer is revealed to us, moments later. During the reign of the old regime, Paula was blindfolded, tortured and raped for weeks by an assailant. During the time when the perpetrator carried out his dastardly deeds, he played Death and the Maiden in the background. Though she was blindfolded while this was happening, Paula has heard the voice of the perpetrator, a voice she is convinced belongs to none other than Dr. Roberto Miranda.
Geraldo wakes up from his drunken slumber and walks into a shocking situation where his guest is secured to a chair and seated across from the guest is an unstable Paula, brandishing their handgun. Geraldo immediately thinks that his wife is lashing out at Roberto because she is upset with his decision of deciding not to head the commission.
“I know his smell.” She responds. Geraldo who has seen her act irrationally in other situations, does not believe that Roberto was her torturer. He also thinks that her attacker appearing in their house is not likely to happen as it is too much of a coincidence.
He convinces Paula to remove the duct tape on the captor’s mouth. Roberto continues to proclaim his innocence. He tries to find a way to convince Paula to release Roberto., convinced that Roberto is innocent.
What is the truth? Is Roberto Miranda the sadistic twisted pervert who tortured and violated Paula or is Paula a disturbed woman who has falsely convinced herself that Miranda was her evil captor? The plot unfolds and reveals the answer to these questions.
‘Death and the Maiden’ is an intense drama that keeps the viewer on edge. Powerful performances, a haunting background score and a superb script make this movie a classic psychological thriller. The backdrop of the storm and heavy rain also accentuate the plot.
The end of the movie is unexpected. All in all, D&M is worth the watch.
Bay Area Bloke 