This is an open letter to Joko Anwar in regards to his newest movie, Pintu Terlarang.

Dear Joko,

Can I call you Joko?

Joko, you are a very talented dude. Your movies rocks so hard I think I peed a little when I watched Kala for the very first time. And it’s not because it was scary (and it was a bit scary, but we’ll get to that later), but because it was so awesomely fresh and so pleasant on me eyes. The direction rocks, the story is goshdarned epic and the cinematography totally owns on all level. +50 cool points, dude.

And despite my reputation for writing utterly sarcastic rants on this blog, no, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I liked Kala. I watched Arisan too. I thought it was fresh. Joko, you are like a mint flavored bubble gum. Fresh.

Now, Joko, I watched Pintu Terlarang yesterday, and I had to say, I enjoyed the cryptic first 30 minutes of the movie. It kept me on the edge of my seat, waiting to scream like a little girl when a ghost or vampire comes up on the screen. But as expected, nothing much happened.

Except for the part where Gambir (protagonist, Fachri Albar) stuffs the dead fetus into a statue’s womb. I was like, OMGWTFFETUSSLAYEEEER this is so twisted yet I think this is going somewhere good, in an artsy film-school kind of way. So I was like, sweet, looks like this is going to be an awesome mind-fuck movie.

Then something happened.

I’m just going to summarise the rest of the movie. Skip to the next paragraph if you don’t feel like reading my wall-of-text summary.

gambir was tormented by seeing what he thought was the apparition of a little kid asking for help, which lead him to this time where he was playing squash with his friends and when he looked in his gym bag he saw a note left behind saying “HELP ME” and so he was like “who the fuck put this here”, and bam, a kid was standing in the doorway and I was like “whoa creepy”, and Gambir chased the kid, right, but he didn’t get a hold of the kid, obviously, but shit, I forgot what happened next. So anyway Gambir was then lead by clues left by the kid to this place called Herosase. Turns out it’s a place where people can watch other people getting beat up and shit through hidden cameras like in the big brother house or something so that’s cool. But it’s not cool because it’s so twisted especially the part where there’s a kid getting beaten up by his parents (same kid that left the cryptic clues). This part was actually repeated every 10 minutes or so which is some seriously pretty fucked up shit and by then I was like AAAAWTF because really, seeing a kid beat up by both his parents for several scenes.. dude that’s just fucked up. I mean, I get the idea, man, but you don’t have to be a douche and repeat it every single fucking minute, you know? But I toughened up. When I just started to get my shit together, there’s this scene where the kid killed his parents with a kitchen knife. There’s blood spurting out of the parent’s throat and by then I was like AAAAWTF. I’m not a pussy, and I’m not that squeamish, and I can handle seeing blood, but the kid just fucking killed his parents on screen, man, that’s not cool. And oh, then he slit his own throat and there’s like blood everywhere and I was like WHAT THE FAAAHCK. That’s not cool, man! THAT’S NOT COOL! Then the first plot twist came, which shows that Gambir's wife is actually being screwed by his friends, yada yada yada. So Gambir got pretty pissed off and he killed everyone. Yeah, we totally saw that coming, dude. So then he got curious, he went downstairs to check the Forbidden Door (did I tell you about that door? You know what, whatever, it doesn’t matter), and turns out the door LEADS TO THE HOUSE WHERE THE KID LIVED (the kid who killed his parents). And I was like oooh snap, it’s actually a decent plot twist because that scene has awesome directions with really freaky music and shit, +50 cool points, dude. Then there’s that part where suddenly the kid lives again and says something creepy to Gambir, but whatever. The next thing I know, we’re lead to this scene showing Gambir in a mental institution. SAYYY WHAAAAAAT Yes folks, IT WAS ALL IN HIS TINY LITTLE HEAD, the whole movie, the whole murder thing, it was all a dream. GAAAAH

That was my first thought, but then I realized that the whole movie actually describes the journey of his tormented psyche to unlock the Forbidden Door, which holds the memory of his past when he killed his parents. The whole movie can be described as a metaphor of Gambir's behavior as a child. He was weak and powerless as a child, and in his imagination, he was thought of as a weak man in front of his wife, parents and wife. The scene where he killed everyone in the dinner table is a lead up to the opening of the forbidden door. By killing everyone in this imagination of his, he unlocks that part of his brain that locked away the tormented part of his past. There’s also that part where he saw the family photograph of the kid, but the mother’s face is blurred. Then he went to the parents’ bedroom, looked at the mother’s face and bam, everything started to came together for Gambir and the kid came back to live and the mindfuck realization slowly came to the audience… a few minutes later, we were treated to a scene of Gambir in a mental institution.

I sort of get what this movie was trying to say. What I don’t understand is why it has so much WTF moments. And why does it have to go through all this trouble to explain that he’s in a mental institution? Can’t we just do that from the start? There’s so many things that can be improved here, and it has the potential to be an absolute mindfuck masterpiece (I keep thinking of Apocalypse Now for some reason, but eh) if it’s done more properly. You can start by cutting the last scene at the church. Then how about making the mental institution background story more relevant to the main story line?

I think I’ve rambled for far too long, but you get the idea. It’s not a bad movie, it has some brilliant ideas, and it’s so close to getting +238592365 cool points from me. So, so close. But I guess you don’t care if people like your movie or not, I mean, Kala wasn’t exactly mainstream, you know. All I’m saying is, why not go all out and make this more accessible? Make it somewhat easier to understand for us plebs so the person sitting in front of us wouldn’t have to ask this at the end of the movie:

“Why is he in a mental institution? And who is that girl.. oh wait, IS THAT HIS WIFE?! OMGWTF IS GOING ON?”