In a Glass Cage

Klaus is a German doctor. During the war he worked on children in a camp and fled to Spain afterwards. He attempts suicide and is left paralysed; he now lives inside an iron lung and cannot breathe without the machine. His wife and daughter look after him. A young man comes to the door: Ángelo wants to be taken on as a carer. He knows the man. He enters the house, drives the women away and takes control of the machine. Then he starts reading the man's own diary. Agustí Villaronga writes and directs. Günter Meisner, David Sust and Marisa Paredes are in the cast. It is a Spanish production. It is Villaronga's first feature and drew heavy reaction on release; in some countries its screening was restricted. The matter it treats is violence being inherited; the narrative shows a victim turning into a perpetrator and produces no justification for it. The iron lung is the object at its centre; the man is entirely helpless and all the tension comes out of that dependence. The photography is in cold blue tones and the house is built like a laboratory. The film is still argued over for the violence it shows and contains scenes that are hard to bear. Its limit is the watching; the narrative gives relief nowhere and violence against children is taken as its direct subject. Who it is for: viewers who like hard European horror and Spanish cinema. Who it is not for: the subject is extremely uncomfortable, the scenes heavy, and the film is not suitable for most viewers.