The Door: La porte du passé

This movie is easily the best German movie I have seen in the last three years. It is a haunting and atmospheric drama with some science-fiction elements, an eerie touch of suspense and even psychological horror as well as some action scenes. This flick has also a strong philosophical character without being too educative. The gripping question of fate and morality may affect you way beyond this movie and I thought about this intense film many days after I have watched it first.

Normally, I hardly give elevated ratings but everything feels right about the movie. The acting of the movie is simply great. Let's point out that Mads Mikkelsen is playing the role of his life and proves once again that he is a great actor that is able to improve every time again and again. He is amongst my favourite actors now. There are many promising German actors that are delivering more than solid jobs here.

The scenario of this movie is based on a novel and filled with complex actions, cliffhangers and twists, just like a great book. I am really looking forward to read the novel now and though I can't yet compare both, I feel that the movie was intense, detailed and diversified. What I really find fascinating is that the movie, even though the main plot is based on a fictional idea that one could associate to a science-fiction or fantasy movie, the whole flick seems real, authentic and down to earth. The mixture is unique and credible. The movie is not about a magic door that leads to the past or present. This little and only fantastic detail helps to kick the whole story off and one is quickly face to face with situations that mix dreams and reality, wishes and deceptions, hopes and despairs so that one doesn't care about whether the introduction is not fitting or too unreal. This movie is not about something exactly supernatural, it's a lot about the true human character and its ideologies and behaviours.

The movie has what I consider a perfect structure, it slowly introduces the main characters and creates more and more a creepy atmosphere with some weird, surprising and shocking scenes that lead to a dramatic, emotional and action filled ending. You really get drowned into the whole story and feel with the characters.

The way the movie is filmed is full of details and the angels and close ups add a lot to the atmosphere of the film. The movie score underlines the incredible and creative story that starts as a drama and ends as a psychological thriller that is more intense than many horror flicks.

I highly recommend this brilliant and explosive mixture that touches your heart, your nerves and your brain. Spread the word about this rather unknown European flick that should gain worldwide attention as it has now come out in North America and the rest of the world.

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.

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.

The premise of this story is so utterly ridiculous, that you rapidly appreciate that it can go in any direction. Whatever the writers choose to pursue as the actual tale, is entirely their right.

What they do pursue, is a tense little drama based around the situation that the magic creates. The result is a dark, edgy, occasionally morbid fairy tale - one could argue that all fairy tales are like that anyway.

Mads gives his usual beautiful-teak performance (I'm sure the man has more than one act... then again, I don't really care if he does), and the supporting cast, particularly the wife and daughter, are excellent.

I did like the way the story gets on top of you, and accelerates. There is a story by Charles Stross that this movie reminds me of, but I can't give you the name without spoiling (it's also not one of his better tales I'm afraid).

Where I could possibly knock off points would be maybe in the logic, but then this isn't an SF tale, it's fantasy. It's also a little long for the tale it tells, it could have been just a bit more compressed for the content. Finally, it's just not a work that moved me - it's good, it's gripping, it's entertaining. But it's not high art.

I can recommend this film, just don't expect it to blow your mind.

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.