In a Glass Cage (1986)

An Exercise In Nonsense

A Brilliant Conflict

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

First and foremost, this film is not an easy one to watch and comes with a trigger warning for anyone sensitive to themes of rape and child molestation. -Spoilers-This film is centered around the character of Klaus, an ex Nazi doctor who has presumably escaped Germany after the war. We learn from the offset that Klaus has an animal-like lust for sexually torturing and killing young children. Eventually the mental strain of this becomes too much and he attempts suicide, jumping from the rooftop of his home. Unsuccessful, Klaus is confined to a giant iron and glass lung which serves as his life support as well as his prison, as he is paralysed from the neck down. His wife, Griselda, employs a young man, Angelo, to help care for Klaus. Unbeknown to her that Angelo was previously groomed by Klaus.We learn that Angelo has taken on the role of Klaus, sexually assaulting and murdering young children to appease him. He does this whilst also grooming Rena, Klaus' 7 year old daughter. -All in all when reviewing this film you need to remove your thoughts of the content and focus on how it was executed. The heavy use of blue tinting and poor lighting makes the scene feel cold and surgical in appearance. This, coupled with the portrayal of Angelo's almost emotionless character makes the film feel so much more intoxicating to watch and leaves you also speechless and cold inside as we are forced to sympathise with a paedophile. It's a film that reminds oneself of just how primal and horrific human nature can be. The ending of Rena climbing on top of the glass cage that Angelo now inhabits gives a chilling feeling of how the cycle of abuse continues, yet creating an ending that could still be argued as ambiguous. 7/10

Discriminating viewers might be excused for wishing this disturbing Spanish feature weren't so well made, because then it could be dismissed as merely gratuitous exploitation. The story concerns an aging, exiled Nazi prison camp doctor confined in a mechanical lung while his male 'nurse' tortures them both by recreating, with a mounting sense of dread and claustrophobia, the atrocities his invalid patient once performed, slowly turning their villa into his own private death camp. The style of the film is not unlike an old-fashioned monster movie, but sensitive patrons should be strongly cautioned: it confronts us with depravity in much the same way as the disturbed young Angelo confronts the helpless doctor with the crimes of his past, putting the viewer in the uncomfortable position of being a willing participant in crimes against humanity.

A film that begins with the brutal murder of a child & ends with his victimizer choking to death on another man's penis can't be said to be the feel good hit of the season, but this is a brutally powerful and disturbing meditation on the nature of evil and the legacy that violence leaves in the lives of everyone it touches.This is most certainly NOT a film to let anyone under the age of 17 view, and i say that as a die-hard opponent of the MPAA and any other self-appointed guardians of public virtue, but this film is UNFLINCHING in its depiction of the predations of not one but two sexual psychopaths and it is incredibly disturbing.To say that one enjoys this film is to probably be put on some kind of potential serial killer watch list at the FBI but there is no denying that it is a powerful piece of work. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I picked this movie out of my library's Spanish video selection and was I surprised while watching this masterpiece! I have never seen anything like it in my life. David Sust is my favorite new actor. What a role! His childhood tormentor- the Nazi- is very convincing as an invalid. I am in awe of the young girl Rena, who plays the daughter. How can these kids be such convincing actors. I tip my hat to them and their acting coaches. The Mother- Marissa Paredes, was great, as well. She is one of my favorite female actresses. I had no lingering questions after watching this film in comparison with watching American movies nor, was there any fancy endings, tying it all together. I could not take my eyes off of the screen; as a matter a fact, I watched it twice! Bravo!