THE DOOR (DIE TUR)
Germany, 2009, 103 minutes, Colour.
Mads Mikkelson, Jessica Schwarz, Valeria Eisenbart.
Directed by Anno Saul.
The Door is a drama that has a conventional setting but becomes a time-travel fantasy.
The basic situation is that of an artist, unfaithful to his wife, visiting a girlfriend, leaving his daughter chasing butterflies – and she falls into a pool and drowns. He is stricken with grief. After five years, he finds a tunnel with a door and goes through it, only to find that he is back in the initial situation before his daughter’s death. However, he also has to confront his former self. The two struggle and the former self is killed.
He attempts to make amends, is faithful to his wife, caring for his daughter. However, the troublesome neighbour reveals that he too is someone who has returned from the future. His wife, sensing something different about him, also wants to do the same thing. His daughter also realises that he is not the same person as before but agrees to go through with the pretence.
It is interesting to see time-travel and alternate worlds in a much more serious, German context than the Hollywood stories. While it defies logic, it gives another angle to the story of someone who is given a second chance to make amends for his previous life. However, this is a German film, and the ending is not neat Hollywood.
The central character is played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelson who in the first decade of the 21st century emerged as an international star as well as one of the main character actors in Denmark.
1. Familiar drama and situations? Change? Time-travel? Possibilities of moral change, opportunities?
2. The serious nature of the German treatment of the material? The serious ending?
3. The suburban setting, homes, pools, studios, the streets and bars? The musical score?
4. The fantasy, the tunnel, suburbia transformed?
5. The idea that people can go back in time, parallel worlds, their other selves and dealing with them? The pessimistic aspect that one of the characters has to die?
6. The basic plot, David, his art, the nature of his portraits? His little girl, chasing the butterflies? His going across the street, the complaining neighbour? His girlfriend, their clash, the sexual encounter? His return, his daughter in the pool, her laces caught, dead, his attempting to revive her?
7. The consequences, his grief, in the bar, the years passing, visiting his ex-wife and her husband? His attempt at suicide, Max saving him?
8. The tunnel, going into the tunnel, going through the door?
9. The two Davids, the five years difference, the confrontation, the former self in the struggle, death? David burying him in the garden? Ineffectually? The new David, relationship with his wife, his daughter, her knowing that he was different, trying to change his life? The birthday, the cake, possibilities?
10. The annoying neighbour, the revelation of the truth, his own story, his return?
11. The irony of the mobile phone, David going to find it, his wife and her suspicions? His thinking that he had buried it?
12. Max, the bar, his telling his story, talking about the future?
13. The wife and daughter, the wife wanting to go into the tunnel, coming back as a new wife? The interaction of the two women?
14. The deaths, the burial in the garden?
15. David becoming desperate, wanting to bury the tunnel, in the car, his wife and daughter going into the tunnel, destruction? An ending that was not neat and happy – requiring audiences to reflect not only on the plot and characters, but the consequences of such time-travel and change?
