Maria Burghardt in "House of the Sleeping Beauties," First Run Features, 2006

It’s hard to say, on the other hand, exactly what Vadim Glowna’s "House of the Sleeping Beauties" (2006) is -- semi-Surrealist fantasy, male-menopausal wet dream, woozy Freudian smoosh of sexual doubt and death fear? All of them, probably, but it’s not complex: a desolate widower (Glowna) is advised by his crotchety friend (Maximilian Schell) to visit a secret quasi-brothel, where a man can go and lay down beside a young, naked sleeping woman, and also surrender to unconsciousness. The madame of the establishment (“The Tin Drum”’s Angela Winkler) warns against abusing the girls, but assures her clients that the drugged dreamers cannot wake up and will have no memory of the night. So, Glowna’s charmless schlub becomes a regular patron, pinching nipples, wondering what would happen if he impregnated one of the sleepers and talking aloud about his own, largely spent, life.

Based on a story by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata, the film effortlessly triangulates ideas of sleep, sex and death in virtually every image -- without consciousness, a gorgeously naked girl is closer to a suggestion of mortality than of sexual release, as the protagonist discovers, just as flawless physical beauty is an insistent reminder of how much youth he no longer possesses. Of course, this absurd movie objectifies its women to an outrageous degree -- or is their nighttime objectification for Glowna in implicit contrast to the daytime lives we never see but know are there? But it’s also a Buñuelian sketch of a swoony old man cornered by his inability to fuck -- and we by our inability to observe it. Unfortunately, Glowna demonstrates no Buñuelian wit, and the ending is a crashing and small-minded pretension. Before that, there’s a Rorschach-ness at work, and the skin is lovely.

"The Wrestler" (Fox Searchlight) and "House of the Sleeping Beauties" (First Run Features) are now available on DVD.

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lkovarik

Re: the Wrestler

Thanks for such an astute and thoughtful article on a performance (and film) so criminally undervalued by the Academy- best actor nomination aside. The voters proved just how woefully out of touch they are.

The good news is, as you suggested, the American film industry shows promise and guts again and Darren Aronovsky is at the forefront of the charge.

I came to the Wrestler not as a fan of the sport, but to witness the magic that Mickey Rourke could bring with material finally worthy of his inimitably visceral presence and he was absolutely arresting. The Wrestler was beautiful decay, it was poetic desolation tempered with warmth. I had to see it multiple times in order to verify that my reaction was warranted.

Still, I respectfully disagree with your depiction of Randy as a “pathetic victim”. He was a warrior who refused to give up without a fight and though there is something hauntingly sad in that, such a simple fact is ultimately redeeming and transcendent. Aronovsky spared us his grim, knowable demise and I like to think this was the reason. Randy donned the tights one last time because he had to on a cellular level, and the roar of the crowd he dreamily remembered while getting a lapdance might have been a motivator, but it was the eerie song of his ravaged pride that propelled him despite the human carnage strewn behind him. Pathetic? perhaps. But never a victim.

Lisa Kovarik