Jason KingTHE DOOR: A Review on Salty
August 2nd 2012 23:07
:
Review by Anna
Big thanks to Anna Hayward for attending this one for me - I am desperate to find a decent film for Anna to watch - she has been attending all the "chick flicks" I cannot make and they have all be dismal - so I thought a decent Helen Mirren film would be the winner - apparently not 
Have no fear Anna - I will find you one I promise
First things first - Helen Mirren doesn't wear makeup. So what?! I hear you mutter, we don't care about such superficial issues as that when we're contemplating ART! I mention this because it's the not wearing of makeup that indicated to me that this is a serious film. It's a move that could be called brave. And it also should have set off alarm bells that this would be a bleak film. Which it really is, so bleak and dismal and melancholic that when it was over I had to walk home listening to Happy Music.
Set on one small street in Budapest in the 1960s, Mirren is Emerenc, a stern, grim-faced, maybe-a-bit-nuts but definitely not a come-in-and-have-a-cup-o-tea- dear housekeeper by trade who keeps her door closed, locked and never open beyond the slight crack it needs when she answers it. No one is ever invited in and she never apologises for that. This door is part of a ramshackle house that is comprised of seniors of varying ages and occupations, who Emerenc occasionally cooks for in the garden, and who would be the closest thing to friends as she has.
Across the road, a glamourous couple Magda (Martina Gedeck) and her mostly absent but consumptively ill husband Tibor (Karoly Eperjes), move in - this is Eastern Bloc 60s though, so the wildness is contained to the wife being a writer and the husband indulging this vocation. To that end, they need Emerenc's housewifely skills to keep the place neat and the people fed while Magda finishes her book. Magda approaches Emerenc to work for her and is told, not so politely, to bugger off. This is not a personal thing, it's just her way. She's rude to everybody: defiantly, unapologetically, impatiently rude. And Magda deals with it well, once she realises that that's the way it's going to be. The two form "unlikely friendship" - well, you'd have to if your housekeeper kept popping in at all hours, leaving strange, ugly figurines on your shelves and then sung you happy birthday on behalf of the dog. And verges into insanity, randomly, and back out again. Scary.
The cause of Emerenc's bad attitude is never properly explained - you learn a little of her sad, and frankly confusing history, but nothing that makes you sagely nod your head and say 'Ah yes, no wonder she's that way.' And as a viewer, that's frustrating, because Mirren is clearly relishing the role and it feels like she deserves more character nuance to flesh out.
There's a sense of menace that's hard to shake in this film - it's there in the suicide of a supporting character, in Emerenc's desperate but concealed desire to please and of course in wondering what's behind her permanently closed door. It's there in the freezing winters they endure and the washed out landscape and the political commentary that occasionally gets mentioned and in the glimpses into Emerenc's past, and what Tibor does for work. I admit that after Magda and Tibor find a puppy half hidden in the snow (the same who later 'sings' happy birthday) and take it home, I spent the rest of the film waiting for the dog to come to a horrible end. It's just that kind of movie.
A major contributor to this may well be the dialogue - it's either been translated or dubbed and is awkward and stilted and clumsy and makes you wonder if Mirren is meant to be staring so intently at the character she's telling off, or just waiting for their lines to catch up with them. This could have been a building, gripping mystery but instead it's a movie without humour or reason.
Mirren's good, she's 'brave' and she looks good in a cap, but she can't save this movie. 5/10 (for the stars without makeup appeal and the very cute dog)
Have no fear Anna - I will find you one I promise First things first - Helen Mirren doesn't wear makeup. So what?! I hear you mutter, we don't care about such superficial issues as that when we're contemplating ART! I mention this because it's the not wearing of makeup that indicated to me that this is a serious film. It's a move that could be called brave. And it also should have set off alarm bells that this would be a bleak film. Which it really is, so bleak and dismal and melancholic that when it was over I had to walk home listening to Happy Music.
Set on one small street in Budapest in the 1960s, Mirren is Emerenc, a stern, grim-faced, maybe-a-bit-nuts but definitely not a come-in-and-have-a-cup-o-tea- dear housekeeper by trade who keeps her door closed, locked and never open beyond the slight crack it needs when she answers it. No one is ever invited in and she never apologises for that. This door is part of a ramshackle house that is comprised of seniors of varying ages and occupations, who Emerenc occasionally cooks for in the garden, and who would be the closest thing to friends as she has.
Across the road, a glamourous couple Magda (Martina Gedeck) and her mostly absent but consumptively ill husband Tibor (Karoly Eperjes), move in - this is Eastern Bloc 60s though, so the wildness is contained to the wife being a writer and the husband indulging this vocation. To that end, they need Emerenc's housewifely skills to keep the place neat and the people fed while Magda finishes her book. Magda approaches Emerenc to work for her and is told, not so politely, to bugger off. This is not a personal thing, it's just her way. She's rude to everybody: defiantly, unapologetically, impatiently rude. And Magda deals with it well, once she realises that that's the way it's going to be. The two form "unlikely friendship" - well, you'd have to if your housekeeper kept popping in at all hours, leaving strange, ugly figurines on your shelves and then sung you happy birthday on behalf of the dog. And verges into insanity, randomly, and back out again. Scary.
The cause of Emerenc's bad attitude is never properly explained - you learn a little of her sad, and frankly confusing history, but nothing that makes you sagely nod your head and say 'Ah yes, no wonder she's that way.' And as a viewer, that's frustrating, because Mirren is clearly relishing the role and it feels like she deserves more character nuance to flesh out.
There's a sense of menace that's hard to shake in this film - it's there in the suicide of a supporting character, in Emerenc's desperate but concealed desire to please and of course in wondering what's behind her permanently closed door. It's there in the freezing winters they endure and the washed out landscape and the political commentary that occasionally gets mentioned and in the glimpses into Emerenc's past, and what Tibor does for work. I admit that after Magda and Tibor find a puppy half hidden in the snow (the same who later 'sings' happy birthday) and take it home, I spent the rest of the film waiting for the dog to come to a horrible end. It's just that kind of movie.
A major contributor to this may well be the dialogue - it's either been translated or dubbed and is awkward and stilted and clumsy and makes you wonder if Mirren is meant to be staring so intently at the character she's telling off, or just waiting for their lines to catch up with them. This could have been a building, gripping mystery but instead it's a movie without humour or reason.
Mirren's good, she's 'brave' and she looks good in a cap, but she can't save this movie. 5/10 (for the stars without makeup appeal and the very cute dog)
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