<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

I saw an excellent movie the other day on Canal +, called ?L?expérience?. It?s a German film and it gave me nightmares.

A group of professors decide to carry out an experiment to make a scientific study of human behaviour in certain circumstances. They recruit 20 volunteers and offer to pay them big money if only they will assist in this mad project.

For 11 days, 12 of the 20 persons will be detained in a ?prison? where there are ?real? cells and where they will be submitted to ?real? detention conditions. Eight of them will be guards, complete with uniforms and batons.

On the first day, things go reasonably well as ?prisoners? and ?guards? alike try to get used to their new roles. But since the ?prisoners? are not real prisoners, they do not take kindly to being ordered around.

At first, the guards are unsure of themselves and do not have the situation under control. This bothers them and they decide to assert their authority more firmly and are rewarded for this by being congratulated by the professors, who monitor every act and behaviour through surveillance cameras.

The ?prisoners? meanwhile start rebelling in the face of the guards? increasingly autocratic behaviour. The guards react with even more violence.

The professors, though slightly alarmed at the way things were turning out, still refuse to intervene. The guards, interpreting the lack of reaction from the professors as a sign of encouragement, increase the pressure; their behaviour towards the prisoners becomes sadistic; blood is drawn, humiliating punishments become the order of the day and eventually two of the professors are taken as hostages, as they start to protest.

The guards say they believe this is all part of the ?experiment?.

Well before the 11th day, two people are dead and three others seriously injured, including the head of the project who unsuccessfully tries to intervene at the last minute.

Of course it was just a movie. But a damn good one; it was in fact so good that I went on the Internet to check whether it was a true story. It wasn?t. It was just psychologically acute fiction.

But what it shows is that the exercise of power without checks and balances is a mighty dangerous thing.

Ordinary people put in such situations develop into monsters when power goes to their heads, which is bound to happen if there is no control and no effective authority.

This begs a question that has always bugged me ? is man inherently good and do circumstances corrupt him? Or is he a monster in waiting that only nurture can save?

If values are inherent in us, why then do we forget them at the first opportunity?

One last thought ? man is the only animal that will kill out of sadism. As a general rule, other animals are simply predators; they will kill to survive and to establish their superiority.

Scary, huh?

Oh and watch the movie if you get the chance.

You?ll see exactly what I mean.