| Review:
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A movie that might have been more aptly titled, Sexually
Desirable When Drugged, Vadim Glowna's House Of The Sleeping
Beauties is the sort of lewd male fantasy fare that seems
to rear its head at least once a year. And with a filmmaker
given the legitimacy to indulge his particular perverse
sexual appetite and falsely label it arty, behavior that
might otherwise land him in handcuffs in the real world.
***
Sexual exploitation of minors in movies is one glaring,
deplorable manifestation. And last year, Jean-Claude Brisseau's
Exterminating Angels featured actresses paid to 'audition'
masturbating for the camera. In Brisseau's case, he was
indeed the subject of sexual harassment charges brought
by some of his actresses. And with a match not necessary
made in heaven between the voyeuristic mindset of directors
and the exhibitionist tendencies of their actors, combining
these two potentially unhealthy inclinations when not creatively
sublimated, can simply spell disaster. And House Of The
Sleeping Beauties (Das Haus Der Schlafenden Schonen) - no
relation to that similarly titled children's fairy tale,
and with Glowna certainly no knight in shining armor - is
an odious case in point. Not content to film the relentless
lascivious activities that comprise his film, Glowna has
assigned himself the role of protagonist.***
Which allows the nearly seventy year old lecher to
openly molest an array of drugged and semi-comatose young
virgins in what appears to be a brothel for necrophiliacs.
These languid, lyrically crafted episodes, during which
the girls are essentially clueless about what is happening
to them, are nothing less than a romanticized and lusty
aesthetic portrayal of date rape.***
A third screen adaptation of the introspective novella
Nemureru Bijo, by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, House
Of The Sleeping Beauties has been alternately titled House
Of The Sleeping Virgins, but with no particular connection
to those Islamic 72 virgins in paradise - other than unhealthy
male obsessions. An inner lament about inevitably approaching
death and faded youth by lonely elderly German widower Edmond
(Glowna), whose wife and daughter died in a mysterious car
crash years ago, the film is no Death In Venice and Glowna
is in no way Luchino Visconti, or Thomas Mann for that matter.
And while that story was more concerned with probing existential
despair through contemplation of elusive youth, Glowna is
more fixated on fondling them. Which is unfortunate, since
the philosophical passages are captivating but ultimately
trivialized.***
When we first encounter Edmond, he's a wealthy businessman
and loner moping in solitude around town, having never attained
closure over the death of his family. His friend Kogi (Maximilian
Schell), another old codger taking pity on his pal, refers
him to the bizarre brothel in question, presided over by
the fussy, reprimanding unnamed Madame (Angela Winkler).
***
Here Edmond, who seems to be the only customer in sight,
is warned by Madame that one may indulge whatever fantasy,
but solely those residing inside one's head, while only
literally sleeping with these nude, narcotically challenged
young women.***
And so it's no surprise when this drooling elder succumbs
to temptation even without benefit of Viagra apparently,
and breaks the house rules with all this helplessly tantalizing,
despicably objectified forbidden fruit around him. But not
before one talks in her sleep - in French - and Edmond replies,
at one point relating a childhood anecdote about his ailing
mother curing herself by eating all the hair on his head
and hers too, including the pubic variety.***
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