The Door (5 Stars)

Today I spontaneously decided to watch a few films starring Jessica Schwarz back to back. After all, she's an excellent actress. She's probably unknown to most of my readers, because she only appears in German films. Yes, that means that I'll be reviewing German films for the next few days. I'm a big fan of German cinema, especially "New German Cinema", which I define as films made since the reunification in 1990. German films were good before 1990, but in my eyes there was a noticeable surge in quality after 1990.

I often read reviews by people who have seen a German film for the first time. They say, "I was surprised how good it was", and then go on to praise things such as the picture quality, the special effects or the action. New German Cinema (I'll refer to it as NGC) is unknown to most film fans in English-speaking countries. When I talk to people in my film club they often say they like foreign films, and when I ask them which countries they usually say Korean first, followed by Chinese and Japanese. The more adventurous film fans might include Spanish or French films. But German? No, they've never seen anything German. That's a shame. They're missing out. German films are of a higher quality than those from any other European country, including England. The German film industry has a much larger budget than the film industries in other European countries, due to a system of state subsidies of film projects. German actors are less greedy than their American counterparts -- does Will Smith really deserve $40 million per film? -- so there is more money left over to invest in special effects and action stunts. German films look very glossy and well-polished compared with the rough edges of English films. But it doesn't end there. In Germany about 150 films are made every year, and it's difficult to find a turkey among them. There's a lot more quality control in Germany, so poor scripts are rejected in the early phases. Compare this with America, where 500 films a year are made, but the majority of them are so poor that they never make it into the cinemas. If a film is German, especially an NGC film, you can assume a certain level of quality.

Now let's get to "The Door". In his interviews the director, Anno Saul, repeatedly calls it a genre film, but he neglects to say what genre it belongs to. Is it a mystery? A thriller? A horror film? A family drama? I admit that the film's final scenes made me cry.

David and Maja Andernach live in a sleepy suburb of Potsdam, just outside Berlin. Maja works as pharmacist, while David is an artist, a painter who works at home. They have an 8-year-old daughter called Leonie. While David is at home with Leonie he leaves her playing alone so that he can have sex with a neighbour. When he returns he finds Leonie dead in their swimming pool. This leads to the break-up of the marriage, and David becomes practically a vagrant.

Five years later David finds an old door in the woods and enters a tunnel. When he comes out on the other side of the tunnel he finds himself back in time, on the day of his daughter's death. He runs home and reaches her just after she falls into the water and is able to rescue her. And they all lived happily ever after? Not quite. David's younger self returns home and mistakes him for an intruder. After a brief fight the older David kills the younger David in self defence. David buries his younger self in the garden and decides to take his place, but Leonie has seen what happened. David's next door neighbour also witnessed him burying the body, but seems strangely unconcerned. From here on David tries to lead a normal life, lying to his friends and family while trying to figure out what has happened.

This is an incredible film. The plot takes twists and turns, and it's never clear what will happen next. There's something that might sound negative, but it works out well. The director cast the Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen in the leading role of David. This was a highly unusual decision, because he can't speak German. Mads learnt his lines phonetically and spoke them for the film. In post-production the actor Ingo Hülsmann dubbed his voice. It's amazing how well this works. The lip movements match, so it's impossible to tell that Mads isn't speaking the lines himself. He plays the role perfectly, as does Jessica Schwarz as Maja.

Fortunately, "The Door" has been released in both England and America. The English version is subtitled, the American version is dubbed. In the case of Mads Mikkelsen's dialogue I should say "re-dubbed". But check out the absolutely awful DVD cover of the English version that I've included below. It must have been designed by someone who knew nothing about the film. It looks like a horror film about a dangerous little girl entering a house. Sigh. The film is about a door in the woods, and it's a man who walks through, not a child.