Forbidden Door

This third film by Joko Anwar is a skilful mix of various genres. As a scriptwriter, he was responsible for waking up the Indonesian film world almost on his own. Anwar is a lover of genre films, but his own films are not quite that – or they do not abide by the rules of the genre. Forbidden Door is not an ordinary thriller, not an ordinary horror film and also not a combination of the two. We’ll just have to call it an Anwar film.
The life of a successful sculptor who is famous thanks to his very literal way of bringing his statues to life, is turned upside down when he believes he discerns mysterious messages. He thinks they are from an imprisoned and abused child, but it’s a mystery to him why these messages crop up all over the place. When he joins a mysterious society that makes perverted television programmes, he finds himself face-to-face with a little boy. It turns out he is in the hands of a sadistic couple. A quest for the imprisoned boy brings the sculptor closer and closer to himself, and finally he faces impossible choices.
Forbidden Door is a psychological thriller, but it’s not entirely without spattering blood. Without being an outspoken horror or ghost movie, the divide between reality and the world of supernatural powers is extremely thin. Anwar plays a game with genres here and has a good command of the game. (GjZ)

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