House of the Sleeping Beauties Image

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 8 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: Edmond, a man in his sixties whose wife has recently passed away, is told about a secret establishment where men can spend an entire night in bed alongside beautiful, sleeping young women, who stretch, roll over and dream, but never awaken. Bedazzled by their seductive yet innocent tenderness, but distressed about the reason for their deep sleep, he delves into the mystery of the house of sleeping beauties. Based on the beautifully strange novella by Yasunari Kawabata, acclaimed writer-director Vadim Glowna has crafted a mysterious thriller about loneliness, sex, eroticism and mortality. (First Run Features)
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 8
  2. Negative: 6 out of 8
  1. 75
    It would be easy to dismiss House of the Sleeping Beauties as a lewd male fantasy, but that would be ignoring the German film's deeper purpose as - in the words of the director, Vadim Glowna - a meditation on "transition, remembrance, mourning, guilt, loneliness, sex and death, eroticism and dying."
  2. 50
    A self-indulgent and icky film, but reasonably well made and undeniably addictive.
  3. Ultimately, the film doesn't succeed in its thematic aspirations, proving yet again that great literature doesn't usually transfer successfully to the screen.
  4. Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    With the mounting number of first-rate, even masterly foreign-language films locked out of movie theaters due to wary distributors, it's worth pondering why such laughable dreck as German actor-writer-director Vadim Glowna's House of the Sleeping Beauties actually made it through.
  5. Not even the august presence of Maximilian Schell can dispel the odor of fusty smut that clings to House of the Sleeping Beauties, a clammy meditation on sex, death and the endless fascination of unclothed innocence.
  6. 0
  7. Reviewed by: Vadim Rizov
    One of the year's worst releases. A second viewing of "Synecdoche" would be less painful.

See all 8 Critic Reviews

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