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List Price: $19.98Amazon.com's Price: $17.99 You Save: $1.99 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 9780780643055
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 0780643054
Label: New Line Home Video
Manufacturer: New Line Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Line Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: June 03, 2003
Running Time: 103 minutes
Sales Rank: 20730
Studio: New Line Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1994
Editorial Review:
Description:
A marriage becomes strained when the wife is confronted with a man she is convinced tortured and brutalized her when she was in jail years earlier.
Amazon.com essential video:
Roman Polanski's film adaptation of Ariel Dorfman's stunning play about the legacy of torture has more in common with the director's first film, Knife in the Water (with all the latter's unnerving ambiguities about power, sexual transgression, and confused alliances among three people) than a straightforward political parable. Sigourney Weaver (a bit underwhelming in this role, but good overall) plays a former political prisoner in an unnamed South American country that has gone democratic. She is married to a government official (fine work by Stuart Wilson) heading up official inquiries into the practice of torture under the former regime. Still shattered by her experience, Weaver's character seeks safe haven in closets of the cliff-top house she shares with her husband. But when the latter comes home in the company of a seemingly nice fellow (a brilliant Ben Kingsley), she believes she recognizes the stranger as the interrogator who raped her repeatedly in prison. She violently takes him hostage, and what ensues is a hurricane of fury and confusion, as Kingsley's terrified character denies all accusations, Wilson's guilt-ridden spouse can't decide whom to defend, and Weaver turns her psychosexual rage into a weapon of humiliation. Dorfman adapted the screenplay himself, but there's no question that Polanski is leading us down a familiar path of human betrayal and terror that he crossed in such films as Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion, and Bitter Moon. At times stunning in its bluntness and compelling to the last, Death and the Maiden literally takes us to the edge of oblivion, where--in Polanski's films--the hardest truths always seem to fall into a heretofore unknown perspective. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Dark and Intense
This movie explores the complex and intense emotions involved in seeking revenge for unspeakable acts of degradation and humiliation. Excellent cast, amazing performances. Dark but compelling film.
Rating:  - A rather interesting plot...
Roman Polanski. With Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, Stuart Wilson
This movie probes into a topic that is rather controversial. The process of justice punishes criminals that commit crimes to sentences that remove their freedom and have tremendous impact morally because of the stigma created by the trial and jail time. But... how do we punish crimes against humanity that were sanctioned by a government?
The process of justice is also created so victims find vindication ... Read More
Rating:  - Not as good as many claim
If you have read the play by Ariel Dorfman, I think you will find this movie adpatation to be wanting. Though there are fine performances by Weaver and Kingsley, Polanski connects too many of the dots for the viewer, leaving little doubt as to the credibility (or madness) of the main characters. It was this very ambiguity that made the play so enjoyable, but this is not evident in the DVD.
Rating: - Nice ambiguous ending
I don't think Sigourney Weaver was "underwhelming" in this movie at all. In fact, I thought her performance was subtle and, indeed, mesmerizing.
Other folks have done justice to the plot's description. But one must watch the movie to get a feel for revenge, or at least some answers, that Weaver's character is seeking after years of torture inflicted upon her (especially after seeing her so nervous and jumpy in the beginning of the film).
What I like most about the film, ... Read More
Rating: - mesmerizing
This is one of Sigourney Weaver's best accomplishments as an actor. Her character has to go through so many emotions at the same time. "Death and the Maiden" is definitly a great thriller. It is a 'Who done it' that willkeep you guessing to the very end. Ben Kingsly also does a wonderful job, is he a villian or not? You positively won't know in this pyschological tale of intrigue and suspense.
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