House of the Sleeping Beauties Too Scarring to Sleep Through

Perhaps some audiences will not be able to look past the shocking scenes that unfold in this scandalous picture, but if nothing else, House of the Sleeping Beauties will leave viewers with something to think about.

Adapted from the novel of the same title by Yasunari Kawabata, House of the Sleeping Beauties is about a recent widower in his sixties, Edmond, who suffers from profound loneliness. One day his best friend, Kogi, suggests that he visit a certain house. At first recoiling from the suggestion that he visit a brothel, Edmond is eventually convinced by a mixture of curiosity and desperation.

The house, he realizes, is full of naked beautiful women in a deep, trance-like sleep. Patrons of the women may—literally—only sleep with them. Despite this seemingly perfect arrangement, Edmond is not completely won over. An inexplicably sinister and macabre air hangs over the place, and the accommodating Madame does little to diffuse it. Yet Edmond returns often to the House—confronted with such naked youth and beauty—which causes him to reflect on his past, morality, and mortality.

Weeks go by, and as the nights pass, Edmond is drawn into this web of mystery and lust. Who are these women? Are they really unaware of what happens to them in the evenings? And how far is going too far with them?

Directed, written, and acted (well, mostly) by German filmmaker Vadim Glowna, House of the Sleeping Beauties is somewhat disturbing to watch. In addition to the vision of a man in his sixties naked in bed with a nineteen-year-old young girl (who is equally naked), the themes of the closely linked relationship between sex and death as well as the focus on incestuous relationships are certainly off-putting.

It is very hard to come to a final opinion on this film. The inequity of the couple in bed, the over-sentimentality of Glowna’s character’s voice-over, and the proximity of sex and death all make it too disturbing to ever willingly watch again. Perhaps one can applaud the director’s eagerness to expose himself—he “went there,” to that dark place where mortality, eroticism, personal history, and desolation usually remain. And he brought to the cinema regions usually shrouded in the subconscious. Glowna attempted to uncover the taboo, hoping to find something profound. As to whether he succeeded or not, that’s a question for each individual viewer.