The Forbidden Door

Pintu Terlarang (a.k.a The Forbidden Door) is really, really great and will definitely making you stay in your chair when you watched this greatest movie ever.

Gambir is an artist. He got a beautiful wife, Talyda. Someday, Gambir got some weird message.

Gambir try to find who send that message. And he tell that message to his friends, Dandung and Rio, and they cannot help Gambir.

Gambir still trying hard to find who send that message, when someday he found some strange door in his home. He asked to his wife, Talyda, about that door. Talyda told him to never opened that door.

Gambir finally got an bright way to solved his problem about weird message. There's some secret organization who broadcast some strange video about the kid who tortured by his parents. Gambir trying hard to help this kid, and take him to sadness truth, madness, Talyda's secrets and definitely, that forbidden door.

Once again, Joko Anwar will give you another guilty pleasure when you watch this. Just like Dead Time : Kala (2007), Joko Anwar make this movie so heartbreaking which is making you keep staying in your chair.

The point is, this movie will make you forget the world, and after saw this movie, I promise, that your brain will full with your own idea about the ending, because, baby, the ending is so cool. You can put some point of view about the ending.

Fachri Albar give a bad-ass performance. He is really great. And, Marsha Timothy can act well too. She can act as a wife who is really mysterious with really great.

The art direction is totally awesome. And the music score is really, really make you wanna jumped out from your chair.

Just watch this movie, watch the Christmas dinner scene and you will forget anything! Trust me.

Pintu Terlarang (aka the Forbidden Door) is a brilliant film, plain and simple. Joko Anwar, the director, did a fabulous job constructing the imagery of the psychological thriller with magnificent scoring, impressive casts and smart plot line. Though the film, itself came from the best-selling novel by Sekar Ayu, I found that it only took major plot from the novel. To be honest, I did not know about the ending until it was revealed. Quite a shock! Both Fachri Albar and Marsha Timothy gives one of the best performances of their career, the powerful performances with complex emotions. Some scene are quite disturbing but it helps the film to build intense in beautiful cinematography, the Joko Anwar's style. You may go and see this film again to realize why the end is such a surprise, or so many twists that you want to get them clearly…or you could rush out to watch it again purely because it's an almost perfect example of it's genre, as I did it three times. Brilliant.

While the climactic twist delivers its intended impact, I find that the film, in its entirety, lacks the depth I desired, ended up providing me a rather bland experience, that is too vanilla for my taste.

And this sentiment specifically stems from its conflicting writing choices. Themes explored are undoubtedly serious and carry significant weight, yet the film's somewhat incongruous lightheartedness diminishes the potency of its thematic substances.

Not only that, the element of shock & surprise is less, and the emotional connection seemed nearly absent.

I feel, a more darker, melancholic approach would have been beneficial for the narrative.

A less horrific thriller than I would have expected, and so much the better, the film shines with its unusual themes and mystery.

Although some elements of the plot are predictable or even dont make sense even after the end of the movie, it is a real pleasure to see the evolution of the main character until the end screen, which even if it disappoints me slightly, remains an interesting point of view.

This movie is a perfectly executed thriller combining startling and grisly violence with mystery and a foreboding mood. A young artist finds himself drawn into a world of terror against his will and his life begins to unravel. This is a story of a cruel world and of living under the power of others.

The multi-part climax and ending could be described predictable, surprising, (Yes, both of those) as truly epic, and cryptic. I think I've figured what it was supposed to mean, though even had you left the theatre merely confused, you'll appreciate the craft and you will have been affected by the movie.

The acting and direction is top notch, and I can attest that the movie was foreboding even when interrupted by technical difficulties and projector problems as my theatre endured when the movie was screened. (Appropriately enough given the English title, our projector broke in two parts where the main character opened a door at a tense moment)

I would love to see more work by these people.