Vancouver 09: THE FORBIDDEN DOOR Review
[Our thanks to Teresa Nieman for another take on Joko Anwar's The Forbidden Door.]
The good news about Joko Anwar's follow up to the brilliant Dead Time (a.k.a. Kala, or The Secret) is that it's bigger, more ambitious, and seems to have had a much more lenient editing process. The bad news is that... it's bigger, more ambitious, and seems to have had a much more lenient editing process. Yep, it's one of those.
Bringing back his fresh-faced male lead from Dead Time, Fachry Albar, and adding a fantastic supporting cast (including Marsha Timothy as his trophy wife), Anwar tosses them into the familiar setting of neo-noir, glossy backdrops and sumptuous colors that is fast becoming his signature style. This and a killer premise seem to promise, wordlessly, that we're in for an awesome two-something hours of popcorn fun with an art movie twist.
And so Forbidden Door begins, with an ominous--but we're not sure what's ominous about it yet--scene set at an art show for our male protagonist, Gambir. Surrounded by the (fake?) smiles of his best friends and his wife, he attempts to sell some of his pricey, in-demand sculptures of pregnant women. Overcome by stress and guilt after overhearing a conversation, Gambir heads outside for some air and reveals through a few telling remarks, that he's done something bad. Then the opening credits roll.
It's a hell of a set-up, and one that makes you exhilarated for what's to come. Anwar proved already in Dead Time that he's a master storyteller, capable of building a layered, evocative mystery like few other directors. Forbidden Door is no different. Even when the secret technique behind Gambir's sculptures is revealed, there's still the matter of the titular door, and after that we're introduced to a sinister hush-hush club for wealthy voyeurs. In a nutshell, we get Dumplings meets Videodrome meets Hostel, by way of an Indonesian Tarantino. It's just as delightful as that sounds, and much more challenging.
in the course of all of these elements and events, Gambir's story gets a bit messy and convoluted. He begins receiving opaque messages asking for help, in increasingly strange places. He follows clues left by the anonymous victim, and is eventually led to a high-end building called Herosase. The members of the place are recruited by other members only, and the only rule is "no questions". As Gambir unlocks one mystery, he unearths another to be solved, and so on. Eventually things come to a bloody conclusion worthy of Chan-wook Park's Vengeance trilogy, which is shockingly entertaining for the first two thirds, until it becomes repetitive and dull--which is something a grand finale should never be. Fortunately, and, incidentally unfortunately, there are two more "endings" tacked on. It always bothers me when movies, especially horror movies/thrillers, do the big surprise ending at the last minute. Forbidden Door was no exception.
Nevertheless, Anwar directs with so much bravado and flair, you can't help but grin and tap your feet along with him. Forbidden Door is such a twisty, brilliant lark 75% of the time, it hardly feels fair to dock too much off of the final verdict because of the ending(s). However, it's because Anwar is so clever and effortless most of the time, I felt the cheap shot of the endings were all the more painful to see. And it should be noted that the latter part of the dual (or, technically, thrice?) endings does seem more ambitious and provocative than I'm giving it credit for. It just feels out of place following the former one, and leaves one rolling their eyes rather than stroking their beards. In a perfect world, we'd get a release of this with a trim here and there throughout the movie, and a complete chop of the second-to-last conclusion. If that were the case, we'd have one of the best films of the year. As it is, Forbidden Door is a great treat for casual genre fans, and a better-than-average frustration for anyone else.
The good news about Joko Anwar's follow up to the brilliant Dead Time (a.k.a. Kala, or The Secret) is that it's bigger, more ambitious, and seems to have had a much more lenient editing process. The bad news is that... it's bigger, more ambitious, and seems to have had a much more lenient editing process. Yep, it's one of those.
Bringing back his fresh-faced male lead from Dead Time, Fachry Albar, and adding a fantastic supporting cast (including Marsha Timothy as his trophy wife), Anwar tosses them into the familiar setting of neo-noir, glossy backdrops and sumptuous colors that is fast becoming his signature style. This and a killer premise seem to promise, wordlessly, that we're in for an awesome two-something hours of popcorn fun with an art movie twist.
And so Forbidden Door begins, with an ominous--but we're not sure what's ominous about it yet--scene set at an art show for our male protagonist, Gambir. Surrounded by the (fake?) smiles of his best friends and his wife, he attempts to sell some of his pricey, in-demand sculptures of pregnant women. Overcome by stress and guilt after overhearing a conversation, Gambir heads outside for some air and reveals through a few telling remarks, that he's done something bad. Then the opening credits roll.
It's a hell of a set-up, and one that makes you exhilarated for what's to come. Anwar proved already in Dead Time that he's a master storyteller, capable of building a layered, evocative mystery like few other directors. Forbidden Door is no different. Even when the secret technique behind Gambir's sculptures is revealed, there's still the matter of the titular door, and after that we're introduced to a sinister hush-hush club for wealthy voyeurs. In a nutshell, we get Dumplings meets Videodrome meets Hostel, by way of an Indonesian Tarantino. It's just as delightful as that sounds, and much more challenging.
in the course of all of these elements and events, Gambir's story gets a bit messy and convoluted. He begins receiving opaque messages asking for help, in increasingly strange places. He follows clues left by the anonymous victim, and is eventually led to a high-end building called Herosase. The members of the place are recruited by other members only, and the only rule is "no questions". As Gambir unlocks one mystery, he unearths another to be solved, and so on. Eventually things come to a bloody conclusion worthy of Chan-wook Park's Vengeance trilogy, which is shockingly entertaining for the first two thirds, until it becomes repetitive and dull--which is something a grand finale should never be. Fortunately, and, incidentally unfortunately, there are two more "endings" tacked on. It always bothers me when movies, especially horror movies/thrillers, do the big surprise ending at the last minute. Forbidden Door was no exception.
Nevertheless, Anwar directs with so much bravado and flair, you can't help but grin and tap your feet along with him. Forbidden Door is such a twisty, brilliant lark 75% of the time, it hardly feels fair to dock too much off of the final verdict because of the ending(s). However, it's because Anwar is so clever and effortless most of the time, I felt the cheap shot of the endings were all the more painful to see. And it should be noted that the latter part of the dual (or, technically, thrice?) endings does seem more ambitious and provocative than I'm giving it credit for. It just feels out of place following the former one, and leaves one rolling their eyes rather than stroking their beards. In a perfect world, we'd get a release of this with a trim here and there throughout the movie, and a complete chop of the second-to-last conclusion. If that were the case, we'd have one of the best films of the year. As it is, Forbidden Door is a great treat for casual genre fans, and a better-than-average frustration for anyone else.
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