Death And Maiden Essay, Research Paper

The Polanski film Death and the Maiden is a wonderful and intelligent

interpretation of Ariel Dorfman?s human rights problem play. Polanski has

produced, in this film, an exceptional piece of direction, in which his own

personal, emotional input is evident. The main theme of the play is an extremely

personal one for both playwright (and scriptwriter) and director. Both Dorfman

and Polanski have had to face and flee the horrors of dictatorship and human

rights violations: Dorfman in Chile, under General Augusto Pinochet, and

Polanski in Poland under the Nazis. But despite this similarity in past

experience, significant differences exist between the original play and the

film. Apart from the specific techniques of lighting and composition, whose

possibilities are greatly widened in the medium of film, we see differences in

both the different emphases and implied viewpoints on the various themes that

the play touches on and, perhaps more importantly, the way the characters are

portrayed. While the old concept of ?whatever doesn?t kill you makes you

stronger? is present in both the play and the film (particularly in the

characterisation of Paulina), it is much more prevalent in the movie. We can see

Paulina?s strength from the start. As she strides confidently around the house

and violently tears off a piece of chicken, the suggestion that she is unsuited

to the domestic position which she has obviously been forced into by the side

effects of her traumatic experience need not be made any clearer. Although

possessing remarkable strength in both texts, the movie shows a much stronger,

almost completely masculine Paulina. This Paulina has been almost entirely

defeminized by her ordeal, physically, symbolised by the scarred breast and her

desire to ?adopt? a child, which also serves as a glimpse of the vulnerable

element of womanhood in her character that still remains. Throughout the bout of

verbal jousting that goes on in the opening scene Paulina is able to hold her

ground much more firmly than she appears to do in the play. In Polanski?s

version of the scene she actually manages to use her domestic role to gain power

in the argument, fiercely flinging the dinner in the bin. Weaver?s powerful

acting conveys the unmistakable tension associated with an incredible amount of

suppressed anger. It is not until the following scenes, when she is finally

confronted with the cause of that anger, however, that we see its full magnitude

and destructive potential. In the surreal, dim lighting of her bedroom Paulina

is shaken by a strangely disturbing laugh upon recognising Roberto Miranda?s

voice as that of her tormentor. This moment sees the birth or manifestation of

another facet of Paulina?s character, the part of Paulina?s mind that

fantasized about doing to her torturers what they had done to her. This is the

unbelievably unreasonable Paulina; she is a Fury, a mythical deity, the

embodiment of vengeance, unsusceptible to male logic or opportunistic, careerist

rationalisation. Polanski makes Paulina throw the car over the cliff-edge. In

doing this she is not only destroying a phallic symbol, and thus undermining

Roberto?s sexuality and any claims he has on sexual dominance or superiority,

she is destroying a perfect symbol of the male thirst for power and control, and

the pragmatic logic to which her need for revenge has been sacrificed, into the

infinite, chaotic abyss that defies all these principles, and unquestionably

swallows it up. In doing this she breaks the railing, civilized society has

created to guard itself from that chaos, allowing those forces of suppressed

rage to escape. Polanski?s Paulina re-enters the house, a different person.

Illuminated by typically horror-movie-style lighting. Her sharply focused face

? lit by an almost electric blue with harsh shadows cast across it,

highlighting her features ? contrasts strongly against the blurry background.

Having bound Roberto, she is physically empowered by the gun (P: ??as soon

as I drop the gun all discussion will cease?you?ll use your strength to win

the argument??) to act aggressively. The gun is another phallic symbol;

hence much of this aggressive behaviour takes on a sexual quality. Unlike

Dorfman?s play, Polanski does not try to make us accept, without a struggle,

the simple truth that to victimize our tormentors is to sink to their level. We

get the general feeling that Polanski is much more sympathetic to Paulina and

the type of justice her injuries call out for. In Polanski?s film adaptation,

far from being driven by blind rage, Paulina is the only character that takes

responsibility for her own actions, and cares little for the self-interested

considerations of consequences. She has already faced the worst consequences

possible, and seems, by that experience, to have acquired a terrifying

emancipation from the restraints they can impose. While Dorfman gives

Gerardo?s logical pragmatism some credence, casting him as the voice of

reason, for Polanski he stands for the blissfully unaware certainty of

principles untested by experience. Gerardo?s clichйd maxims are the

luxuries of a man who has never faced the reality of his enemy?s power.

However, the film is not a justification of Paulina?s actions, a simple

revenge fantasy. Despite the satisfaction of Paulina?s brand of justice, she

can?t, when faced with Roberto?s honest confession and the fact that he too

is human and has his own reasons for doing what he did, push herself to kill

him. In fact I am not sure that killing him was her intention when she lead him

to the cliff, she understood the almost unbearably painful truth when she first

decided that ??no revenge [could] satisfy [her]?? For all the rage

contained in the film (significantly more than the play), and its portrayal of

Paulina, there is a certain helplessness to the film, and a disturbing truth in

its unresolved ending. One might argue that Polanski ? in making Roberto give

an overall much more genuine confession at the end of the film than Dorfman

provides in the play ? is falling into the Hollywood trap of offering a simple

resolution to its many moral conflicts and thus making it accessible to a wider

audience. I believe this circumstance serves a very important purpose,

emphasized by its juxtaposition with the very last scene. It underlines this

important impotence in the film?s ending: the fact that despite her having

faced her demons Paulina has been permanently changed by her ordeal. And

although she may have ??reclaimed [her] Schubert?? in that she can now

sit in a concert hall and listen to the music, the music will never be able to

tell her the same things again. And even if Roberto is not there in person (as

he is in the final scene) he will always exist as a vague presence, a

?phantasmagorical? shadow on her soul.