Lifespan

Year releasted: 1974

by Nathan Rabin
October 2nd, 2002

With its concern for ethics and its snooty disdain for digging up corpses, killing test subjects, and resurrecting the dead, the medical establishment has lost ground to mad scientists in such important fields as zombie creation. Lifespan dramatizes the conflict between the mad and sane divisions of the scientific community through the story of a brash, poorly dubbed American scientist (Hiram Keller) who travels to Amsterdam for a conference highlighted by a speech by renowned gerontologist Eric Schneider. Keller looks forward to comparing notes on "curing" the disease of mortality, but is forced to change his plans once he finds a decidedly non-immortal Schneider hanging from a noose. To honor Schneider's memory, Keller decides to retrace the dead doctor's footsteps by seducing Schneider's nimble young hairdresser lover (Tina Aumont) in the name of science. He even replicates some of the doctor's less savory extracurricular activities, such as tying Aumont up in a scientifically sound and super-sexy double-helix knot. What begins as curiosity soon morphs into a full-blown obsession, as Keller attempts to uncover the doctor's activities while unloading huge chunks of exposition through voiceover narration. Later, while spying on Aumont from a chess bar, Keller is confronted by an elderly doctor who helpfully advises him, "Don't make the same mistake as Linden. Don't ask Anna about the Swiss man." Being an astute student of reverse psychology, Keller promptly asks Aumont, "Who's the Swiss man, Anna?" She's reluctant to reveal the details, of course, and mentions that Keller used to spy on her from the Anne Frank Museum. This prompts an impromptu visit to the memorial, where Keller picks up a valuable clue about his late colleague's experiments while learning about Hitler's genocide and Frank's affection for American movie stars. After digging up a rotting corpse, Keller requests an audience with the Swiss man (Klaus Kinski), who points out that Holland is very sensitive about tampering with the dead, but nonetheless offers to underwrite Keller's experiments. Convinced that Keller has plunged into insanity, the scientist's colleagues have him committed to a mental hospital. After consulting with Schneider's ghost, Keller leaves the hospital and heads to Kinski's mountaintop laboratory, where he ends the film much as he began it: obsessed with immortality while waxing pretentious about matters of life and death.