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Rating: Bed Time, original title "Mientras duermes" is a 2011 film by Jaime Balagueró.
For the writer, it's his most beautiful film.
Cesar (a superlative Luis Tosar) is the concierge of an apartment building in Barcelona. He’s not quite right in the head, he’s a loner, his only company is the tenants in the building.
He knows them all very well and occasionally enjoys playing little pranks on them, just to ruin their day.
Cesar is very, very unhappy (sometimes he thinks about ending it) and therefore especially hates happy people. The young Clara (Marta Etura), a tenant, is always so kind, sweet, serene, she really seems happy. Cesar is firmly determined to wipe that smile off her face forever.
An harrowing nightmare begins for Clara. Cesar has the keys to all the apartments and at night makes it a habit to enter Clara’s. He chloroforms her, sleeps next to her (mientras duermes) and gradually devastates her life won’t say where, won’t say how...
The film is pervaded by constant tension, with impressive nighttime scenes of Cesar roaming Clara’s home freely committing his misdeeds and day by day disintegrating the existence of an unsuspecting Clara.
Cesar’s escalation of violence is tremendous, a series of perfect plot twists, necessary I would say, for a subject of fine craftsmanship. The film grips you to your seat. You’re in it, it’s damn realistic.
Claustrophobic film, almost always shot inside the building or in Clara’s apartment, inevitably recalls Polanski’s seventies masterpiece, but it’s a film with its own precise identity and a convincingly clockwork script. If we want to continue with illustrious comparisons, Bed Time also stands out, especially when compared to other contemporary horrors (yes, it’s so unsettling it seems more horror than thriller). It stands out because it decidedly deviates from contemporary clichés (zombies, maniacs, splatter, lots of blood, few ideas). We were talking about illustrious comparisons, writing correctly is a serious matter and I digressed a bit. Well, the comparison is with Psycho, indeed. Cesar is very reminiscent of Norman Bates. Cesar also has a mother, on the brink of death, and is rather cruel even to her... in fact, he maybe considers her the source of his ultimate unhappiness if only because she brought him into the world...
What else to say... you shouldn’t miss it, especially if you’re a fan of the genre.
After watching it, take a look under the bed before going to sleep... you never know...
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