Hinter der Tür

the definitions are not the inspired way to describe this special film. because it is a return to the small things who are too precious and fragile for be parts of a definition. and because the acting is , in this case, not exactly good or remarkable or impressive or seductive or precise. it is only is. sure, the axis is the work of Hellen Mirren. but her admirable performance gives opportunity to discover the sides of story in the right light. and to her partners to build solid characters. it is a film about a meet and memories and tragic decisions and the present who preserves old scarfs. and about the silence inside the words. a film from the East because the East is the best embroidery of old dramatic stories and immortal memories. a film for reflect, understand and admire. and about trust. and friendship. and the bitter beauty of solitude.

I found this movie stunning. It transmits such a bittersweet feeling, sadness combined with a certain peace of mind, of heart perhaps... It's a movie that teaches you that you shouldn't be afraid of death,that loneliness,illness,the loss of beloved relatives can be worse than death. This movie tells you that you should never give up,and the main character, Emerenc's path is an example.She's a strong and straightforward woman, very decided when it comes to protect her intimacy and her memories from youth. She's helpful and loyal though cruel and blunt sometimes,she hides her feelings but they burst out in some wonderful scenes like the one with the china dog or the dinner where Evike never showed up. Best movie I've seen this year,the music and the lightning are extraordinary. The director, Szabo Istvan is entitled to receive many more credits than it had received until now.

This is a very interesting film. The first half is quite good & creates the requisite mystery around the elderly cleaning lady. I was curious to know who this audacious lady was, why she aroused such loyalty among her acquaintances & why she never opens the door to her home for anyone. So far so good. Oh, I did have a few issues with the abrupt manner of acting & editing, but I managed to maintain my interest as it has the appeal of a beautiful art film. However, things went down fast in the second half. The scenes seemed even more rushed. Besides, the addition of fantasy elements is always a sore spot for me.

So, in a nutshell, it started out interesting but went downhill from there.

Szabo Istvan is not a contemplative filmmaker - which I don't really mean as an insult. A lot of "contemplative" filmmakers, at their worst, seem constipated more than anything (see some of the films of Szabo's younger countryman, Tarr Bela), whereas Szabo can achieve a forward propulsion that can at times be dazzling, as in the films with scenery-chewing actor Klaus Maria Brandeur that were the height of his international fame, or in "Being Julia." The director has a peculiar way of editing that has existed from his early Hungarian features ("Father," "25 Fireman's Street"); scenes often end abruptly, as though he had chopped the end off them, and then run to the next scene. This gives Szabos' films an odd rhythm that is alluring in his best work, but maddening and even incoherent in his less successful efforts.

"The Door" is not a peak; it is hardly a failure either. It shows the Szabo style at its best and worst. The dialogue is flung out by the actors, and can have the kind of hard brilliance that's found in the old screwball comedies (Helen Mirren, in what may be the best performance of her career as an astonishingly cantankerous old cleaning woman, has some especially hilarious insults and bitter, sour-faced advice-dispensing here), but much of it is also simply hard to catch. The movie keeps a fine, sprinting pace most of the way through. It only starts to crumble in the final quarter, at which point I admit I wasn't entirely sure what was going on. And here we have the failure of Szabo's films uncontemplative style. Watching his less successful films it is as if his producer has told him that he absolutely must clock in at under a certain time. "The Door" feels rushed; it hurries to the end, and suffers for it. One feels the same in other films directed by Szabo: "Taking Sides," which is gripping and interesting but finally frustrating, and the ambitious "Sunshine," which attempts to stuff Hungarian history from the late 19th century to the post-war era in under three hours.

Still, "The Door" is almost a great film from one of the last living European film directors of the old school. All of Szabo's work is worth seeking out. It's a shame that the few remaining filmmakers in the grand European style are marginalized - even when they make fine English-language movies with Oscar winners (see also Tavernier's "In the Electric Mist"), it's lucky if these see the light of day in most countries, while young "provocateurs" with nothing to say are lauded in the major festivals. And there's something at my local cinema titled "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters"...

After the first few minutes of The Door, I was thinking, will I be able to watch this all the way through? This was because it had the hallmarks of an arty, experimental film that usually winds up too boring to watch. Happily, this turned out not to be the case.

I started out watching The Door thinking that if Helen Mirren was in it it couldn't be too weird or pretentious. And, it wasn't. But it was different, creative, engrossing and interesting. The film's Tag Line indicates that it's about a relationship between two women with the focus on the relationship. This was true however I would amend that to say that the focus was really on Mirren's character who was the oddity in it. She was the pivot around which everyone and everything revolved.

The film was written, directed and photographed well enough that it wasn't boring. And, the acting, especially of Mirren, helped immensely. Someone without her skill and talent wouldn't have pulled it off. The character she played was unpleasant, bossy, critical, and lived by her own rules. At the same time there was enough about her that was positive to allow the film to work.

This is the kind of film you don't want to miss if you like to watch those that are not only entertaining but are something of a phenomenon, causing you to think.