Watch The Forbidden Room

The Forbidden Room is a visually stunning and enigmatic film directed by Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. It features a star-studded cast including Roy Dupuis, Clara Furey, and Louis Negin and explores a multitude of interconnected stories within fantastical worlds that blur the line between reality and imagination. The film opens with a submarine crew lost at sea, searching desperately for a way back to their loved ones. They stumble upon a mysterious door leading to a series of increasingly bizarre and surreal scenarios, each one more fantastical than the last. The film is divided into a series of nested stories, each one musical, witty, and bizarrely entertaining.

One such story features a man who transforms into a human skeleton, only to be reanimated by a group of people looking for a cure to his ailment. Another story follows a lumberjack who seduces and murders trees, while a third story details the adventures of a group of people traveling on a train that can only travel eastward.

Throughout the film, Maddin employs a rapid-fire editing style that gives the impression of a film reel stuck in a projector, with images flashing past too quickly to fully comprehend. This frenetic editing style is complemented by a surreal color palette that blends together shades of green, blue, and red in a dreamlike haze.

One of the standout performances in the film comes from veteran Canadian actor Louis Negin, who plays a variety of roles throughout the film, ranging from a hypnotist to a missionary. Negin's performances are both comedic and haunting, adding an extra layer of depth to an already complex film.

While The Forbidden Room is certainly not a film for everyone, those who appreciate experimental cinema will find plenty to love. The film's ability to seamlessly blend together a multitude of storylines into a cohesive whole is a testament to Maddin's skill as a director, and the film's dreamlike atmosphere is perfectly complemented by the surreal visuals and dizzying editing style.

In conclusion, The Forbidden Room is a film that defies easy categorization, blending together a dizzying array of genres and storytelling styles into one unforgettable whole. While its inaccessible nature may prevent it from reaching a wider audience, those who appreciate avant-garde cinema will find plenty to appreciate in this wildly creative and imaginative film.

The Forbidden Room is a 2015 mystery with a runtime of 1 hour and 59 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.1 and a MetaScore of 83.