DANGEROUS DREAMS is perhaps the best of the CRIMES OF PASSION series so far, chiefly because it places Puck, the central character (Tuva Novotny) in a position of real danger. She takes the job as the secretary of Nobel Prize-winning author Gregor (Peter Carlberg) and becomes involved in a complicated family drama of jealousy and revenge. Gregor has spent his life being sadistic to his children Yiva (Vera Vitali) and Kåre (Simon J. Berger) that he becomes a prime candidate for murder. Puck tries to leave, but Gregor insists that she should honor her contract. She finds it difficult to sleep at nights, and ends up having weird dreams, one of which involves her making love to Christer (Ola Rapace).
Molly Hartleb's production takes place in an isolated mansion, where no visitors are ever allowed. Christer invites himself in, on the pretext of investigating a murder, but finds Gregor's family unwilling to say anything. DANGEROUS DREAMS makes some trenchant points about upper-class bourgeois life: Gregor's family seem to believe as of right that they are superior to anyone else, and have no reason to communicate with the police if they don't want to. As the paterfamilias with a considerable literary reputation, Gregor rides roughshod over everyone; one word from him and everyone is traumatized into silence. The only way towards reform is to burn down the mansion altogether (in a plot-device borrowed from REBECCA) and for everyone living there to begin a new life.
As Puck, Novotny is as inquisitive as usual, as she steals into other people's bedrooms and rummages through their belongings in the hope of discovering vital clues. Yet she does this at her peril; there is one sequence where it seems as if she has finally met her match. Through a series of close-ups, director Hartleb focuses on her genuine fear, as Puck realizes that she might have gone too far. Detective-work might be fun, but not when your life is in danger.
