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Big Brother with a body count would be one way of describing Oliver Hirschbiegel's taut thriller, set in a mock prison where volunteers adopt the roles of prisoners and guards in a controlled experiment into human behaviour.
Inspired by the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, a notorious real-life study of power dynamics in social situations, what begins as an innocent exercise in role-playing soon turns nasty as the 'guards' employ increasingly questionable methods to stamp their bogus authority on their rebellious charges.
The spanner in the works is Tarek (Bleibtreu), a cab driver who becomes a 'prisoner' with the intention of writing an undercover exposé. Deliberately exacerbating tensions in the bogus jailhouse, he unwittingly arouses his captors' latent sadism. Ritual humiliation and retribution leads to shocking violence, with claustrophobia and paranoia bringing out the worst in everyone.
Far-fetched it may be but "The Experiment" makes for uncomfortable viewing - not least for its implication that the same impulses that fuelled the Nazi movement still lurk in the darkest recesses of the German psyche. Such inflammatory ambiguities make it easier to forgive the hysterical excesses of the latter stages, though not a brutal rape scene that is far too lurid for comfort.
While Bleibtreu ("Run Lola Run") makes a charismatic lead, the other cast members hardly distinguish themselves with a range of largely two-dimensional stereotypes. Interestingly, though, it's Uli Hanisch's prison design that emerges as the film's real star, its antiseptic confines subtly heightening the prevailing mood of desperation and malevolence.
In German with English subtitles.
