Tras el cristal

In a Glass Cage
Theatrical release poster
Tras el cristal
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
Edited by	Raúl Román
Production company	T.E.M. Productores S.A.
Distributed by	Lauren films
Release date	1986 (1986)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	Spain
Language	Spanish
Box office	31,624,135 ₧

In a Glass Cage (Spanish: Tras el cristal) is a 1986 Spanish film written and directed by Agustí Villaronga and starring Günter Meisner, Marisa Paredes, and David Sust. The plot follows an ex-Nazi child molester who is now paralyzed and depending on an iron lung to live. A young man who comes to nurse him was one of his former victims years before. The film was inspired by the history of Gilles de Rais. With its theme mixing Nazism, pedophilia, torture, and homosexuality, the film was highly controversial. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was selected to be shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016.

Klaus, a former Nazi doctor, practiced horrific, sadomasochistic experiments on children during World War II. After the war, he goes into exile in a remote village in Catalonia, where he continues to rape and torture young boys. He kills his latest victim with a blow to the head, taking photographs of the crime. Angelo, one of Klaus' victims, spies on him from a window, and steals incriminating writings and photographs of the doctor's crimes. Klaus tries to commit suicide by jumping from a tower. He survives, but he is left paralyzed and unable to breathe on his own, confined permanently in an iron lung to survive.

Some years later, Klaus is being taken care of by his wife Griselda and their young daughter Rena in a large gloomy house in the country. Griselda is unhappy in Spain and, overwhelmed by the task of looking after her husband, secretly wishes he would just die. Angelo appears, offering his services as a nurse to help take care of Klaus. Griselda takes an instant dislike towards Angelo and does not want to hire him, but Klaus insists that he should stay. In reality, Angelo has no actual nursing skills, which Griselda soon discovers, but even then Klaus refuses to get rid of him. Angelo's true aim is revealed to be not only to take his revenge out on Klaus, but to ultimately take his place as a torturer. Angelo reads Klaus passages from the diaries he stole in which the doctor describes, in detail, how he tortured his victims. Recreating what Klaus did to him, Angelo strips and masturbates in front of Klaus. He then calls Griselda. She tries to run away, but he kills her, hanging her from the rails of the second floor.