| Tras el cristal | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Agustí Villaronga |
| Produced by | Teresa Enrich |
| Written by | Agustí Villaronga |
| Starring | Günter Meisner Marisa Paredes David Sust |
| Music by | Javier Navarrete |
| Cinematography | Jaume Peracaula |
| Editing by | Raúl Román |
| Studio | T.E.M. Productores S.A. |
| Distributed by | Lauren films |
| Release date(s) | 3 March 1987 |
| Running time | 110 minutes |
| Country | Spain |
| Language | Spanish |
| Box office | 31.624.135 Pesetas[1] |
Tras el cristal (English: In a Glass Cage) is a 1987 Spanish art house horror film written and directed by Agustí Villaronga and starring Günter Meisner, Marisa Paredes and David Sust. [2] The plot follows an ex-Nazi sadistic child abuser who is now paralyzed and depending on an iron lung to live. A young man who comes to nurse him was one his former victims years before. The film was inspired by the history of Gilles de Rais.[3] With its theme mixing Nazism, pedophilia, torture and homosexuality, the film was highly controversial.[2]
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Klaus, a former Nazi German doctor who practiced horrific experiments with children during World War II, has continued with his sick attraction for torturing and killing young boys during his exile in a remote village in Catalonia. His latest victim is a child he has tortured and later kills with a blow to the head, taking photographs of the crime. This sadistic act has been witnessed by Angelo, another of Klaus victims, who has spied him from a window, later stealing the tortured incriminating writings and photographs of the doctor's crimes. Klaus tries to commit suicide jumping from a tower, but he survives. As a result of his failed attempt he is now unable to breathe on his own, confined to a glass cage, immobile and depending on an iron lung to live.
Some years later, Klaus is taking care of by his wife Griselda and their young daughter Rena in a lugubrious large house in the country. Griselda is unhappy in Spain and, overwhelmed by the task of looking after her husband, she secretly wish he would just die. Then a young man appears offering his services as a nurse to help taking care of Klaus. Griselda takes an instant dislike towards Angelo, the young man, and does not want to hire him, but Klaus insists that he should stay. Angelo actually has no nursing skills, which Griselda soon discovers, but even then Klaus refuses to get rid of him. The striking looking young man with big scars on his face was one of Klaus victims and they had a sickening, sadomasochism relationship. His instinct are, like Klaus's, disturbed. Angelo's aim is to take revenge from Klaus, but also ultimately to take his place. The two men bond quickly forming a perverse disturbing relationship. Angelo reads Klaus passages from the diaries he stole in which the doctor described, in detail, how he tortured his young victims. Recreating what Klaus did to him, Angelo strips and masturbates in front of Klaus' glass cage. He then calls Griselda. She tries to run away from him after seeing what he has done, but he kills her, hanging her from the rails of the second floor.
The next day, Angelo fires the housekeeper taking over the house with Rena's help. Rena is not disturbed by her mother's absence, she was harsh on her and Rena feels much more comfortable under Angelo's care. Angelo proceeds to continue with the doctor's experiments, delivering young boys next to Klaus's glass cage. Angelo lures a child to the house with the excuse of needing help with carrying the groceries. He ties the boy to a chair and, in front of Klaus, kills the boy by injecting him through the heart with a needle filled with gasoline. A second boy is brought in and Angelo kills him by cutting his throat. Fearing that Angelo is out of control and that his life and Rena's are in danger, Klaus tells his daughter to run away to the near village with a message asking for help.
Angelo discovers Rena while she is trying to escape and brings her back to the house. He dominates her, sometimes assuming a parental protective role and some other through terror and violence. Finally Angelo removes Klaus from his iron lung to die by asphyxiation while emulating the scene of his own abuse, in Rena's presence. Once Klaus is dead, Angelo takes his identity totally, getting into the artificial lung, and makes Rena take his.
The film was the directorial debut of the Spanish filmmaker Agustí Villaronga.[4] Made in 1985, Tras el cristal was partially funded by subventions from the ministries of culture both of Spain and of the regional Catalan government.[4] It was distributed by Barcelona based Lauren films.[4] The "glass cage" of the film's title refers to the archaic iron lung which has become the home within a home for ex-Nazi Klaus after a failed suicide attempt.[2] Tras el cristal was inspired by the history of Gilles de Rais, a fifteenth-century French nobleman who preyed on children in sadistic black magic rituals and was eventually convicted. [3]
Tras el cristal was released on DVD in the United States on 25 May 2004 by Cult Epics.[2] The film is in Spanish with English subtitles. The bonus feature includes a brief interview with director Agustí Villaronga about the making of the film, the origins of the story, the stylistic use of color and location, and the acting. The film made its debut on blu-ray disc on November 8, 2011.