Door

Door

Director ~ Banmei Takahashi

Writers ~ Ataru Oikawa, Banmei Takahashi

1988, Japan

Stars ~ Keiko Takahashi, Daijirô Tsutsumi, Shirô Shimomoto

Taking a long time to kick in, ‘Door’ is a film that often feels like padding rather than slowburn, despite planting promises as it goes along (oh, a mini chainsaw…). Yasuko (Keiko Takahashi) is a housewife mostly looking after her small son with the absence of her husband seemingly filled by pushy salesmen on the phone and at the door. It’s this that causes problems when she closes the door on one salesman’s fingers, instigating a campaign of revenge-terror.

 Daijirô Tsutsumi as the salesman often glares and is framed as if he has wondered in from a noir (in a phone booth, simmering, even with a neon green headset), elsewhere the film shifts into the feel of giallo (blades!). Predominantly, it feels like kitchen sink with the score seemingly on random play and starting without much blending (very giallo). Yet elsewhere the sound design overlaps and the foley work toils overtime in isolating the footfalls and the metallic clang of the door – hardly a secure sound – creating an almost otherworldly aesthetic.

Yasuko’s vulnerability and anxiety are played at believable rather than hysterical levels, and with all the male pushiness trying to sell her something, the intimation that the apartment is just as much a prison as a safe space increases. But there’s no avoiding the sense of the film time-killing and there’s a drag until the the pyrotechnics of the showdown: points about everyday life, the gender disparities, the unhelpful society, passive-aggressive capitalism, the stalker creepiness, are all made early. When the home-invasion takes over, there’s a lot to credit in the authenticity of the clumsy tangling and fighting between housewife and assailant, that she doesn’t quite become some kind of righteous kick-ass female heroine. There’s surely unintentional humour but something absurdly realistic when they are trying to battle a mini-chainsaw through the door with a fork and rollerskates: it’s like kids trying to recreate ‘The Shining’ with dad’s tools.

But the peak of it is an overhead tracking shot of a chase through the apartment, a stunning sequence that is worth the wait.