Rent Death and the Maiden (1994)

Political Play - Death and the Maiden review by Steve

This is an actors film, a three hander faithfully adapted from Ariel Dorfman's acclaimed stage play which is hardly opened out at all; it's a photographed version of a night at the theatre. And it's a condemnation of the torture and oppression of the citizens of Chile during the regime of Augusto Pinochet...

But it is fashioned into a potent political thriller. The location isn't stated but can easily be deduced. Sigourney Weaver plays a liberal survivor of police torture and rape who means to take an eye-for-an-eye when she has a key perpetrator (Ben Kingsley) strapped to a chair in her remote country ranch house.

Or is she delusional, provoked by a desire for revenge? The mediator is her husband (Stuart Wilson), a lawyer who leads the inquiry into state sanctioned atrocity. So it's schematic, but still a functional vehicle for an exhumation of official secrets which gives a voice to the dead and the traumatised survivors.

The hostage's speech about the addictiveness of brutality is horrifying, though we are spared flashbacks. As a static production of a stage play this is extremely good, if not cinematic. The greater reach of the medium gets the politics to a different, broader audience. It's yet another a warning from history.