Die Tür

One of the best European productions i have seen this year and absolutely Deutsche Grundlichkeit! Mads Mikkelsen would make Oscar material out of an airline safety video and he again is blowing is away.

When distraught artist Mikkelsen finds a door to a parallel world it looks to go his way. The story line makes sense from beginning till end in this top smart suspense script with superb performance by Danish sexiest man of the year Mikkelsen and Schwartz as his wife. This story burns slow, but fastidious, and it twists and twists and twists.

A perfect world is only one layer away from disaster is one that applies here and as said by André Maurois: a man cannot free himself from the past more easily than he can from his own body. The mundane average surroundings make you realize only half way that you are watching a master piece.

I enjoyed very much this movie as it was a blend between dark and fantasy. The actors fitted the roles and I liked the game between the "old" and "new" characters. What I liked the most was the fact that the movie was not predictable and had a touch of sensibility, which most movies nowadays tend to miss. As an European movie I recommend it without hesitation and the thriller part was blended perfectly with the dark story. As a minor observation I can add that the story could have gone a bit darker without fading away the sensibility of the father- daughter relationship. In this light, I think the movie can be improved, but the written part on which is based I think succeeds as a story. So if you want a quality movie, with an imaginative story and good actors, this is the right movie for you.

An interesting concept no doubt, 'The Door' just doesn't execute it all that well.

It starts off decently and I was interested in seeing where it would go. However, I feel like it lost its way very quickly and suddenly became rather underwhelming. The performances of Mads Mikkelsen (who's German was actually dubbed by Ingo Hülsmann, annoyingly) and Jessica Schwarz, while more than fine, don't set the film alight either - nor do any other elements of this 2009 release.

A disappointment all in all. Forgettable!

/////////// s/o the cast: Mads Mikkelsen Jessica Schwarz Valeria Eisenbart Heike Makatsch Tim Seyfi Thomas Thieme.

Within last decades, suspense thrillers have become trendy, and novelists and screenwriters try to create the source materials as mind-twisting and twisted as possible. While focusing on such a turn/twist, they form rather trivial story around it - intentionally or spontaneously. All this applies to the film in question, where the basic story is rather trivial, with keywords as middle-class family, jealousy, adultery... Well, a certain twist provides additional food for thought and even criminal moments, but all this is often difficult to follow, and collisions between someone and his/her younger version via traveling in time is not too compelling. The ending scenes add some action, but the solution is - well, you just shrug your shoulders...

As usual, Mads Mikkelsen gives a strong performance (in German), and there are a few scenes without his presence, but the rest are just good, not more; anyway, admirers of Mikkelsen and/or psychological drama thrillers do probably see more interesting angles.

It was quite challenging, being in the states, to find this movie for my collection with decent subtitles. By far it has to be watched in its original German language. Watching the dubbed versions are horrific and kill the movie entirely. Which is a crime because this really is a very interesting and gripping film. That characters are dynamic and plot does manage to have it's twits and turns. The interactions are completely believable and, once again, Mads Mikkelsen turn in a very good performance. Then again he very very very rarely turns in a sub- par performance. Even the child actor in this is good. I can not praise this movie enough. Very high quality, in my opinion, and I'm usually pretty critical of movies. This is the international movie I show my friends when they tell me they want to watch something good from another country.