Review: One Night Only
The Forbidden Room | Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson | Canada | 2015 | 119 minutes
UW Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, Saturday, December 12, 7:00pm»
Now Streaming: Fandor | Netflix
Guy Maddin deconstructs film language and narrative tropes in his latest phantasmagoria co-directed with Evan Johnson. Edwanike Harbour concludes that The Forbidden Room is for people who appreciate film in its purest form.
Guy Maddin may be one of the more recognizable names in Canadian cinema. Not one to shy away from the absurd, Maddin vividly recreates the feel and look of early era and silent films. He definitely pays homage to directors such as Luis Bunuel and David Lynch, but he must be given credit for making his creations his own. Where as My Winnipeg (2007) is a humorous look at life in a cold, desolate, Canadian town, The Forbidden Room is what Edgar Allen Poe would have penned after spending time with Ken Kesey and the Merry Band of Pranksters.
Part acid trip, part fairy tale, The Forbidden Room is a fevered dream within a dream that flows like a free-associating Joyce novel. There are many layers that fit together, fleetingly at first, but there is a theme that is woven between these seemingly unrelated vignettes. It is dense, frustrating, and taxing to watch but for a patient film enthusiast, it pays off in the end. The imagery is haunting and the print appears to be melting at times with the full color processing, which stylistically amplifies some of the hazy recollections of some of the characters.
Essentially, a group of four men are trapped for months on a submarine that is submerged under 50,000 pounds of pressure. The submarine contains unstable cargo. A woodsman appears out of nowhere and tells them what he last remembered before mysteriously appearing on the ship. From this point on, there are several disjointed transitions from vignette to vignette as the deepest fears of the trapped men are explored.
This is a Guy Maddin film so there is some levity added in the midst of this dense material. Relationships and love reimagined through Maddin’s lens are deconstructed to their purest forms.
The film reminds me of a much more experimental version of Scorsese’s Hugo, which was quite a shock for parents who took their children for what was sure to be a “kid’s film.” Like Hugo, The Forbidden Room is a movie for people who love movies, not just to be entertained by them, but to be transformed by them. This is a film for people who appreciate film in its purest form.
Editor’s note: If you miss the Cinematheque screening on Saturday, The Forbidden Room is now streaming on Fandor. For additional local coverage, check out the Isthmus review of The Forbidden Room by MFF’s James Kreul.