''Death and the Maiden'' is a 1994
mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
Films
* ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film
* ''Mystery'' ( ...
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
film directed by
Roman Polanski
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a ( né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, tw ...
and starring
Sigourney Weaver
Susan Alexandra "Sigourney" Weaver (; born October 8, 1949) is an American actress. A figure in science fiction and popular culture, she has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Gramm ...
,
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and tw ...
and
Stuart Wilson. It was based on the 1990
play of the same name by
Ariel Dorfman
Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman (born May 6, 1942) is an Argentine-Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American ...
, who also co-wrote the screenplay with
Rafael Yglesias
Rafael Yglesias is an American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels, Hide Fox, And All After, A Happy Marriage, and the 1993 movie '' Fearless'', which he adapted from his own novel of the same name. He is the father of Nicholas an ...
.
Plot
Paulina Escobar (Weaver) is a housewife married to a prominent lawyer in an unnamed
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
n country (implied to be
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
). One day a storm forces her husband Gerardo (Wilson) to ride home with a charming stranger, while the power at his home is cut. She is convinced that the stranger, Dr. Miranda (Kingsley), was part of the old regime and that he tortured and raped her for weeks while she was blindfolded. Paulina takes him captive to determine the truth. Despite attempts by both her husband and Miranda to convince her that he is innocent, Paulina is certain that he is the one, and forces her husband to be Miranda's "attorney" in the "trial" she arranges for him.
Miranda conspires with Gerardo to agree to a false confession (as Paulina states that this is all that she wants in exchange for his life), so they write one up and present it to Paulina. Enraged, Paulina deems Miranda as being unrepentant, and threatens to kill him. As Gerardo tries to stop her, Miranda succeeds in getting Paulina's gun, and threatens to kill her if he is not freed. As he advances toward the door, the power in the house turns on and Paulina hits him, getting back in control. In a last-ditch effort to save his life, Miranda implores Gerardo to call the Spanish medical school where he claims to have been at the time of Paulina's rape, as she leads him blindfolded out the door to the edge of the cliff. Gerardo contacts the school, where Miranda's colleague seems to confirm the story. He races to inform Paulina, at last convinced that Miranda is innocent. Paulina refuses to believe it, however, saying that the doctors at that time created alibis in order to conceal their identities. Accepting defeat, Miranda finally tells them that he really was the doctor, that he enjoyed brutalizing Paulina, and that he was sorry that the old regime fell.
Enraged, Gerardo attempts to throw Miranda from the cliff, only to realize he cannot bring himself to take a life. Paulina apparently accepts the confession, and they both leave Miranda on the cliff as he stares down at the water. The camera simulates someone falling off the cliff as seen from his own point of view. In the final scene, Paulina and Gerardo are at the same concert where the film began with Miranda also present, looking down with his wife and sons. Paulina and Miranda cast uncomfortable glances at each other, and look away. Miranda glances down at the couple again as the camera shows Gerardo glancing up towards the balcony at the now off-screen Miranda.
Cast
*
Sigourney Weaver
Susan Alexandra "Sigourney" Weaver (; born October 8, 1949) is an American actress. A figure in science fiction and popular culture, she has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Gramm ...
as Paulina Escobar
*
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and tw ...
as Dr. Roberto Miranda
*
Stuart Wilson as Gerardo Escobar
Production
Roman Polanski said he greatly enjoyed making the film. Producer
Bonnie Timmermann
Bonnie Timmermann (born Bonnie J. Golub, December 1947) is an American casting director and producer for film, television and theatre, perhaps best known for her work on the TV series ''Miami Vice'' and for her ongoing collaboration with the sho ...
, who had worked with Polanski on three other films, was pleased to say that he was ahead of schedule and praised Polanski's work calling it "his best movie since '
Tess Tess or TESS may refer to:
Music
* Tess (band), a Spanish pop band active from 2000 to 2005
* TESS (musician), a UK musician
Film and theatre
* ''Tess'' (1979 film), a 1979 film adaptation of '' Tess of the d'Urbervilles''
* ''Tess'' (2016 film ...
'.
Music
A central
motif is
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
's
string quartet in
D minor, which is known as the
"Death and the Maiden" Quartet. A recording of this quartet was played during Paulina's rape.
Reception
Critical reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
the film has a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 82% based on reviews from 50 critics. On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
it has a score of 72% based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Roger Ebert of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago ...
'' gave it 3 out of 4, and wrote: "Death and the Maiden is all about acting. In other hands, even given the same director, this might have been a dreary slog."
Box office
The film grossed $3 million in the United States and Canada and an estimated $8 million worldwide.
[
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References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Death And The Maiden (Film)
1990s mystery drama films
1994 drama films
1994 films
American mystery drama films
British mystery drama films
British films based on plays
American films based on plays
Films about Latin American military dictatorships
Films directed by Roman Polanski
French mystery drama films
Fictional duos
Films set in South America
Films shot in Chile
Rape and revenge films
Films scored by Wojciech Kilar
English-language French films
1990s English-language films
1990s American films
1990s British films
1990s French films