... aka: In a Glass Cage
... aka: Prison de cristal (Crystal Prison)
Directed by:
Agustí Villaronga
One the very best genre debuts of the 80s was this highly disturbing and memorable first feature from Villaronga. Klaus (Günter Meisner) leaps from the roof of his home in a suicide attempt. Instead of dying, finds himself paralyzed from the neck down and confined to an iron lung to live out the rest of his days. His miserable, put-upon wife, Griselda (Marisa Paredes), and their lonely young daughter, Rena (Gisèle Echevarría), are then tasked with spending the majority of every day catering to Klaus' every need. Griselda feels more like a slave than a wife and is in desperate need of help, while Rena has been unable to live a normal childhood, have friends or even go to school due to her responsibilities, which far exceed what a young girl should be dealing with. The family, originally from Germany, have been living in exile in an old country mansion in Spain for eight years. They're spent most of that time indoors, having not made any trusted friends or acquaintances that they can turn to for help. Instead, Griselda writes to her father, who financially supports them, to arrange for any help they may need. Sounds like we should be sympathetic, right? Turns out quite the opposite!
The reason the family had to flee their homeland in the first place was because Klaus is a Nazi war criminal who conducted sadistic medical experiments on young children, whom he also molested. Not only that, but Klaus continued to indulge in his sick fantasies after war, kidnapping, raping, torturing and / or murdering a series of young boys. As for Griselda, while she may not be fully aware of her husband's post-WWII extracurricular activities (the two spent many years apart), she does know what he did as a Nazi, yet is more concerned with the inconvenience and stress her husband's injury and the relocation have caused her. She secretly confides to her father in a letter, "At times, I think it would be best if he died." In the same letter, she asks if he'd send them a live-in nurse to help care for Klaus so she can have more time for herself and Rena. But mostly herself.
Enter Angelo (David Sust), who mysteriously comes to the home claiming to be a nurse. Griselda is immediately suspicious of the strange, soft-spoken young man. For starters, she knows her father didn't send him, so who did? And, if no one did, why did he come there on his accord? There are numerous other red flags. He looks far too young to be a nurse. He didn't announce his arrival, but instead sneaked inside, locked himself in Klaus' room and had a private conversation with him before revealing himself. In an effort to get to the truth, Griselda cleverly sets him up by having him give their maid (Imma Colomer) a shot so she can observe that he actually has no clue what he's doing. Convinced now that he's there under false pretenses, she insists he be fired but Klaus demands he stay. Frustrated, Griselda starts seriously considering (literally) pulling the plug on her husband herself.
Angelo is soon revealed to have been one of Klaus' many victims as a child and yet he's not really there for revenge. His trauma has manifested itself in other ways, namely him developing a twisted infatuation with his abuser. He was even lurking around to witness Klaus' most recent rape / murder of a young boy and his subsequent attempted suicide. Afterward, he hid the boy's corpse to cover for him and then stole his scrapbook / journal, which details years of his horrific acts starting at the concentration camps. Now in the home, Angelo starts sneaking into Klaus' room late at night to perform some extremely disturbing rituals that include depriving him of oxygen, performing sex acts with him and reading passages from his journal detailing his crimes. Just as Klaus had access to many helpless young boys to fulfill his sick fantasies in the camps, now Angelo has a helpless captive to fulfill his, which mimic what Klaus was up to.
It isn't long before Angelo manages to get the upper hand in the household. First, he removes the domineering Griselda from the equation. He then fires the maid. Rena, who wasn't on good terms with her parents to begin with, is initially receptive to Angelo's displays of paternal affection; something she's never really experienced before. All the while, the torture and torment of captive by captor late at night continues. Angelo puts a corpse on top of the iron lung so Klaus is forced to stare at it all night long, lets the home rapidly deteriorate, burns the furniture, encases everything in wire and refuses to bathe the former Nazi, making him lie in his own filth. He then goes even further than that, by luring young boys to the home so he can murder them right in front of Klaus, using tools from Klaus' very own Nazi medical kit, replicating his exact methods of dispatch and the exact scenarios present in the journal.
You may be thinking, what's there to possibly gain from watching something so unpleasant and disturbing? As it turns out, quite a lot. Perhaps there's nothing really new here content-wise. This is essentially about the cyclical nature of abuse, violence and trauma, how it's transferred from one generation to the next and how victims often turn around and claim their own victims. However, this is such a potent, well-executed, visually striking example of that theme that it hardly even matters. The acting from all four leads is superb and the overall visual style and cold, steely blue photography by Jaume Peracaula are all perfect for this material. The arresting aesthetic qualities of the film are matched by nearly every other facet of the production.
Villaronga not only expertly handles the suspense and horror content but also somehow manages to gracefully walk a tightrope in regards to the controversial subject matter. He neither soft-peddles nor is overly graphic with depictions of abuse toward children. Just enough is shown to achieve the desired impact but nothing beyond that. The director took inspiration for the Klaus character from the reputed crimes of 15th Century lord Gilles de Rais, who supposed gained sexual gratification from the rape, torture and murder of hundreds of young boys; crimes for which he was tried, convicted and executed for in 1440.
In a Glass Cage was not quite given its proper due upon release. It was praised by some critics but denounced by others (who still were forced to at least recognize how well-made it was) and the extreme nature of the content did not exactly set the box office ablaze either. As a result, this was mostly screened at film festivals before being ushered onto home video, and is still occasionally trotted out for theatrical showings to this day. The appeal of this movie was, is and will always remain somewhat limited, and that's understandable.
Despite its spotty release history, this was actually more popular here in America than in most other countries. After playing at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1986 (where it was nominated for Best Feature) and other scattered showings around the U. S. (mostly in major cities), it was given an unrated VHS release through Cinevista Video in 1988, where it started to develop a cult following. In 2004, Cult Epics released a DVD, which they followed with a (much improved) Blu-ray release in 2011. The controversial film had censorship and ratings problems in some countries, namely Australia (where it was banned) and the UK (where they didn't even bother submitting it for classification because they knew it would be censored).
★★★1/2
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