SOURCE: James, Nick. Review of Death and the Maiden, by Roman Polanski. Sight and Sound 5, no. 4 (April 1995): 40.

In the following review, James lauds Polanski's effective cinematic adaptation of Death and the Maiden, commenting that the film's direction is subtle, restrained, and thoughtful.

[In Death and the Maiden,] Paulina Escobar prepares a meal in her beach house, in an anonymous South American country, while a storm brews. She hears on the radio that her husband Gerardo has been appointed to head a government commission of inquiry into human rights violations committed under the country's former military regime. The electricity supply cuts out. Lighting candles, Paulina takes her meal into the bedroom, having thrown away her husband's. Hearing an approaching car, she extinguishes the candles and gets an automatic pistol. She hears her husband thanking someone, and the car pulls away. Gerardo explains that he had a flat tyre and...