FORBIDDEN DOOR (Indonesia, 2009)
Directed by: Joko Anwar
Starring: Fachri Albar (lead guy), Marsha Timothy (wife), Ario Bayu (friend), Tio Pakusodewo (art dealer), Hendar Amroe (mother)

Imagine a 19th Century gothic novel directed by David Lynch from a screenplay by Alfred Hitchcock, give it an opening credits sequence by Saul Bass and a score by Bernard Herrmann and you’ve got Joko Anwar’s THE FORBIDDEN DOOR, one of the most unsane movies we’ve ever screened. After his political horror noir, KALA, became a word-of-mouth hit at last year’s New York Asian Film Festival, we were excited to see Anwar’s new movie and he doesn’t disappoint. This is an atrocity exhibition, and the most evil movie we’ve ever screened.

Gambir is a frustrated, floppy-haired sculptor who’s letting everyone else run his life. His mother comments on his low sperm count, his wife gets him his gallery shows and his father-in-law pays for his home. When he finally gets his wife pregnant it looks like Gambir’s gonna become a real man and stop sleepwalking through life, but his wife opts for an abortion, instead. While most people would grieve and move on Talyda, his wife, begs Gambir to memorialize their lost child by putting its corpse inside one of his sculptures. Wouldn’t you know it? He’s suddenly an artistic success. Most people would now conclude that what they need is a good therapist. Gambir concludes that what he needs are more dead babies.

But that’s just the beginning of this movie, and from there things become even more depraved. Giant propaganda billboards chortle, “Welcome to the Smiling Land!” and they advise citizens to, “Be a good wife. Get a job.” while decadent wealth spreads like a stain, debasing and destroying everything it touches. Bad sons, doomed mothers, husbands and wives tied together by dark crimes, and at the center of it all the sinister Herosase Club. But the most chilling moment is when Talyda says to her husband, “I’m alone. And so are you.”  Because that’s the greatest horror of all: we’re all alone, trapped in our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, isolated from everyone else. When you go through the forbidden door, you got through it alone.