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Das Haus der Schlafenden Sch�nen (House of the Sleeping Beauties) (2008)

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Top Critics

Average Rating: 3.9/10
Reviews Counted: 18
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 13

No consensus yet.

Average Rating: 3.2/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 5

No consensus yet.

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Average Rating: 2.4/5
User Ratings: 124

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Movie Info

Director Vadim Glowna explores such complicated issues as loneliness, guilt, remembrance, mourning, sex, death, and dying in this adaptation of Yasunari Kawabata's novel concerning a most unusual bordello catering to a most unlikely clientele. Edmond is a lonely man in his late sixties. On the advice of his older friend Kogi, Edmond visits a bordello that allows elderly men the rare opportunity to lie down beside beautiful, youthful women. The girls are narcotized before each session, ensuring

Unrated, 1 hr. 39 min.

Art House & International, Drama

Directed By: Vadim Glowna

Written By: Vadim Glowna, Yasunari Kawabata

In Theaters: Nov 14, 2008 Limited

On DVD: Apr 21, 2009

First Run Features

Das Haus der Schlafenden Sch�nen (House of the Sleeping Beauties) Trailer & Photos

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Cast

Vadim Glowna
Edmond
Angela Winkler
Madame
Maximilian Schell
Kogi
Birol ??nel
Mister Gold
Mona Glass
Secretary
Marina Weiss
Maid
Benjamin Cabuk
Balladeer
Peter Luppa
Priest
Jacqueline Le Saunier
Sleeping Beauty
Maria Burghard
Sleeping Beauty
Babet Mader
Sleeping Beauty
Linda Elsner
Sleeping Beauty
Sarah Swenshon
Sleeping Beauty
Isabelle Wackers
Sleeping Beauty
Birol �nel

Critic Reviews for Das Haus der Schlafenden Sch�nen (House of the Sleeping Beauties)

All Critics (18) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (5) | Rotten (14) | DVD (1)

Glowna presents this smoky German feature as an elegy for lost youth, but it's so tumescent with male self-pity that I couldn't wait for it to end.

January 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader

| Comment

J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Do you find this premise anything but repugnant? It offends not only civilized members of both sexes, but even dirty old men, dramatizing as it does their dirtiness and oldness.

January 8, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times

| Comment

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Top Critic

Sure, there's copious full-frontal female nudity and an aroused male body part, but such scenes are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. There's a subtle difference, but still a difference.

November 14, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Post

| Comment

V.A. Musetto

New York Post

Top Critic

Based on an acclaimed novella by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata, the film is one of those self-consciously atmospheric literary adaptations that suffer from a surfeit of symbolism and pretentiousness.

November 14, 2008 Comment

Frank Scheck

Hollywood Reporter

Top Critic

Not even the august presence of Maximilian Schell can dispel the odor of fusty smut that clings to House of the Sleeping Beauties.

November 14, 2008 Comment

Jeannette Catsoulis

New York Times

Top Critic

One of the year's worst releases.

November 12, 2008 Full Review Source: Village Voice

| Comment

Vadim Rizov

Village Voice

Top Critic

More aptly titled Sexually Desirable When Drugged, the movie features slumbering sex slaves in what seems like a necrophiliacs brothel for grumpy old men, and nothing less than a romanticized and lusty aesthetic portrayal of date rape.

April 12, 2009 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze

| Comment

Prairie Miller

NewsBlaze

Most bad movies are simply forgettable. But some bad movies are so amazingly wrong that you feel compelled to gawk at them.

January 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Oregonian

| Comment

Stan Hall

Oregonian

With the mounting number of first-rate foreign-language films locked out of movie theaters due to wary distributors, it's worth pondering why such laughable dreck as German director Vadim Glowna's House of the Sleeping Beauties actually made it through.

November 21, 2008 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor

| Comment

Robert Koehler

Christian Science Monitor

It's easy to feel as drowsy as any of the titular ladies while watching this misogynistic, soporific contemplation of old age, mortality and T&A.

November 14, 2008 Full Review Source: Film Journal International

| Comment

David Noh

Film Journal International

...keeps things moving even when there is actually little going on besides morbid ruminations and deep drifts of sleep.

November 14, 2008 Full Review Source: PopMatters

| Comment

Chris Barsanti

PopMatters

a turgid porn fantasy tale for depressed old men

November 13, 2008 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com

| Comment

Paul Brenner

Filmcritic.com

If ever there was a paradigm of insufferable European art-house pretentiousness, this is it.

November 13, 2008 Full Review Source: Cinematical

| Comment

Nick Schager

Cinematical

Despite the fact that its premise sounds like it was dreamed up by a pervert who depends on that date rape drug for a social life, this macabre molestation mystery proves to be easy to swallow.

November 12, 2008 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze

| Comment

Kam Williams

NewsBlaze

A meandering, self-indulgent rumination on old age, death and unfulfillable desire, German actor-director Vadim Glowna's adaptation of Yasunari Kawabata's surreal, ironic short story gets everything but the surrealism and irony right.

November 12, 2008 Full Review Source: Time Out New York

| Comment

Mark Holcomb

Time Out New York

Telling what amounts to a rather simple story, Glowna puffs up his exposition with quotes from Chinese poetry, rounds of heavy-handed symbolism and experiments in multiple narration.

November 9, 2008 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine

| Comment

Andrew Schenker

Slant Magazine

Steeped in European sensibilities, "House of the Sleeping Beauties" is a melancholy diary of human frailty juxtaposed against a fuzzy palate of artistic exploitation.

November 7, 2008 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com

| Comment

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

A meditation on life, death, sex, revenge, religion and peace that is involving despite its ponderous pace.

October 29, 2008 Full Review Source: Compuserve

| Comment

Harvey S. Karten

Compuserve

October 23, 2008 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze

| Comment

Prairie Miller

NewsBlaze

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Das Haus der Schlafenden Sch�nen (House of the Sleeping Beauties)

View All

A very sensual film that explores loneliness and innocence, and does so in a very low-key, almost mystical way. The main character, Edmond (Vadim Glowna, who also directed), carries most of the action and the dialog, delivering soliloquies that evoke his pain at losing his wife and daughter some 15 years before, a loss

November 9, 2011

Mark Abell

Super Reviewer

(*): Thumbs Down Slow, boring, and not at all erotic. At the end of it all, I had to ask myself: What was the point to this? I don't think I will ever truly know (or care).

July 11, 2010