House Of The Sleeping Beauties (2007/First Run Features DVD)

 

Picture: C    Sound: C+     Extras: C     Film: C+

 

 

Actor Vadim Glowna directs House Of The Sleeping Beauties (2007), yet another film about man’s obsession with women as they enter the twilight years and wonder if they ever made contact, really possessed a woman the way they wanted too and how that plays with the last stage of life: death, as closely associated with the pleasure drive.  Some would write this off as a film by a “dirty old man”, but at times, it reminded me of Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and even Altman’s Ready To Wear (1994) if not as successful as either of those underrated films.

 

The problem occurs when Glowna’s obsessed character spends too much time with the beautiful sleeping nude body and the speculations of what he can do with the helpless body (implying everything from date rape to necrophilia) become too long and drawn out, repetitious and obvious.  The ideas that are interesting never really get explored and the film ends abruptly after 99 minutes with a resolution that is really unrelated to the ideas.  Nice try, but too uneven despite some risks taken.  Maximilian Schell also stars.

 

The letterboxed 2.35 X 1 image is on the soft side and unfortunately, it looks like a low-def master with burned-in subtitles was the master source for this disc, so there is no way it is going to look too great.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 German Stereo is simple stereo and often on the quiet side as we get soft talking in the nude scenes.  Extras include stills, film notes, text bios and trailers for more First Run DVDs.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo