p e n g u i n d e v i l

After planning on it for a long time, we finally watched Death and the Maiden. A film that I hadn’t seen in many years, but remembered liking. It’s the story of a couple in a South American country soon after the fall of a Military regime and the election of a democratic government. The husband has just been selected to head a committee to investigate human rights violations of the previous government and the wife… Well… She is one of the victims of the human rights violations, 15 years previously having been imprisoned for 2 months and: kept in the dark, starved, tortured and raped. Naturally, she has become rather reclusive, high-strung and paranoid. These folks live on the coast in the middle of nowhere and one dark and stormy night they have an unexpected guest. A nice enough fellow who says he lives in the area and helps the husband when he has a flat tire. While the husband befriends him and they have a couple of drinks the wife, hiding in the bedroom, hears his voice, listens to him talk and swears that it is the Doctor who tortured her all those years back!

In a panic, she sneaks out of the house, steals his car and begins concocting a plan to get him to confess his crimes to her! Of course, as it has been 15 years and she never actually saw her tormentor, other folks may not back up her notions or methods, but she has a gun and there aren’t any people around at the moment. It’s a pretty good thriller and drama. Though it is slow to start, weak in parts and Sigourney Weaver (as the wife) does some rather overdone acting that doesn’t come across too great. On the strong side, it also stars Ben Kingsley as the mysterious Dr. Miranda. I always like Kingsley and he does a fine job here (no Don Logan or anything, but still). I also thought that the story was an intriguing one, it was directed by Roman Polanski, and it has a very low-budget feel to it. Which works well, as its based on a play so the lion’s share of the running time takes place in only one room and there are only 3 significant roles.