MANIFF Sunday: Behind the Blue Door

Will Stevenson | 5th March 2018

The first narrative feature of MANIFF 2018’s final day was Polish fantasy film, Behind the Blue Door, which proved to be a mostly successful and certainly ambitious venture full of twists, adventure and a nice dose of darkness.

Behind the Blue Door centred around Lukas, a young boy who is involved in a horrific car accident which leaves his mother in a coma. Despite the efforts of his kindly neighbour, Mrs Cybulska, Lukas is forced to go and live with his unknown aunt at her remote, gothic looking inn on the coast until such time that his mother awakens.

Lukas and his Aunt Agatha’s relationship is fraught with tension at first as they both attempt to deal with a situation neither of them wants but when Lukas, going along with his aunt’s most important rule about knocking on every door before he enters, discovers that if he knocks in a certain way on the blue door of his bedroom, he opens up a sparkling, luminescent world of unknown amazement.

The films’ impressively ambitious CG effects, and wonderful practical ones, manage to entirely immerse you into the world behind the blue door and for the vast majority of the film, it works as a great piece of fantasy filmmaking. Sadly, while trying to create a more realistic ending, Behind the Blue Door seems to forget what made it a great film up to that point; the fantasy.

The young adult element of the film makes it easily accessible to many ages despite the more frightening scenes of danger and this is really where the film hits its high point.

As a fantasy film, Behind the Blue Door is wonderful, magical for 85 mins. It’s a shame it’s a 95 minute long film.

REVIEW  BY MORGAN ROBINSON (@TH3PURPLEDON)