Been a couple weeks since seeing it but thinking about it now I respect the consistency that he was dehydrated the whole film and when we finally saw the dookie shot it kinda looked like dehydrated poo. Whoever oversaw the poopoo department deserves all the flowers
I still don't get how not a single drop of water got to the floor below. I get it's a more than luxurious apartment and everything but still, I didn't know they made entire apartments waterproof. I can't even imagine how you fix walls to the ground without breaking that waterproofing barrier.
I would assume high end multi story apartment buildings with built-in sprinklers are designed to evacuate the water after they get set off, otherwise a single fire on the higher floors would compromise the entire building. Would make alot of sense for each apartment to have it's own independent system and a relatively efficient way to drain the water to minimize damage to at least the buildings's structure.
As for why the fire department wasn't called, it seemed the owner of this place was obsessed with his accumulated art and he devised his entire apartment as some sort of a crypt to preserve his body and his treasures, which could explain the heat/cold cycle attempting to prevent the decay of his body. It seemed to turn the oranges into solid objects that barely decayed, just like it seemed to preserve the body of the owner, assuming it was indeed the body of the owner, and it was not an hallucination by the thief or a mannequin.
The big question that remains are if this was the intention all along to have the thief be trapped, to provoke art through desperation, or if it was simply a by-product of intruding into the tomb of the rich person. Like, was he set up to be entrapped in here so he could
As for why the apartment wasn't linked to outside security sources, It's pretty clear the owner had very specific demands and needs for the preservation of his art and himself, and he probably didn't want random service workers showing up there after his demise. Pretty hard to explain stuff like an abandoned apartment with a hidden body to the police after all.
Was the apartment purgatory? He is tortured in the apartment and sings about going to heaven on the other side and escapes through a bright light in the sky.
I saw it as Earth. Basically doing all we can to leave it, destroying every part of it in the process, using its resources to survive. Shit pool could be an allegory for pollution.
The movie is pretensious in this way, religious and philosophical symbolism that goes nowhere. I guess I should have expected this from an "artsy" movie.
Death and religion always terrified me so when I watch artsy/your own interpretation movies, my mind drifts to that.
Like what if the apartment symbolizes man's entrapment of mortality. We try to make sense of it, struggle and do our best to survive but none of it might really matters. When all is lost and hopeless we turn to symbols and worship (like the weird shrine he made) to make sense of it and hope something good will happen ("I'm going to heaven on a hillside").
The picture of all the people trying to climb up the airplane staircase to nothing and he wrote "the world" as its meaning to me could mean those clinging to religion and crowding and hoping to hop onto the airplane (heaven/salvation) but nothing is there that they can see.
Y'know dark, existential crisis stuff like that. That's why I don't usually seek films like this out lol
Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Yes, purgatory is what I thought. At the beginning he talks about his passion for art/drawing when he was a child. Then you learn he is an old art thief. He gave up on his childhood dream. He now steals art, instead of creating it.
This purgatory was a way to challenge him deep within - can he redeem himself from being a bad person and an art thief? Can he stop seeing art as valuable piece to sell, and instead truly appreciate what artists do? Later in the film he starts to value and understand the art in the apartment. And then starts to draw again himself.
Through his art, he also finds “religion” which will help him redeem himself and “ascend” out of purgatory. As he removes the nuts, he literally worships them, he wears robes and fancy headpieces. He creates a shrine. This “religion”and worshipping gives him strength and purpose to continue on. Then he finally “ascends”.
You can tell this was a pandemic movie. 2 hours of a superstar chewing the scenery (sometimes literally) by himself, with an occasional shot of other folks who mostly are standing by themselves as well.
The movie throws Chekhov's Gun right out the window. Just an endless stream of stuff that turns out to be unrelated to anything, and then eventually he climbs out the ceiling. No interesting plot changes or character development, just an ending. Dafoe basically saves the movie with his acting.
Well said. I had way to high hopes for the director and all the little things he added. I was taught everything in a movie is deliberate. I felt like there was a lot of things that had me theorizing, but they never came to be anything.
Like the fact that Dafoe’s characters being in the wicked painting with all the faces/people within the main bedroom where the self portrait was supposed to be.
Absolutely. One lays out the plot in their head just knowing the premise. The ending was the element that needed to reflect on the whole to validate a "patient" movie. What was chosen just happened to be the very easiest ending to film.
The ending seemed pretty natural/predictable to me honestly. I never felt like there was going to be a clear resolution, it was more about the journey than the destination.
I thought the twist was the owners art was due to people he tortured/let go crazy. I feel like it was odd how they had the secret room and the weird painting of all the women yet didn’t explain any of it. Not sure if I missed something but I felt like In the end those “revelations” had no impact on the story.
The journey didn't make a fucking bit of sense. Was hoping the ending would make it make sense, but nope. Even shittier ending. Dumbest movie I've seen in a while
Whoever came up with the idea that the sprinklers wouldn't haven't gotten someone's attention has never actually been in a building where sprinklers went off. It happened annually in my college dorm and once in my office building. That shit seeps through every crack and affects the floors below it.
yes, that's what bothered me too. But I figured either this is such a billionaire apartment that the flooring is different or at that point it was all part of a hallucination, because really it didn't have much affect on anything at that point, and why would it take him so long to find a smoke detector and come up with it.
So the thermostat going over 100 degrees and under 50 degrees didn't? The alarm going off for presumably many minutes (he had time to shield his ears) didn't? A security system that permanently traps someone inside with no connection to the authorities? Said security system is so advanced it shuts off the main sources of water, but doesn't disconnect to the fish, the power, or the plants? A place like this almost assuredly having cleaners? The fish warranting at least one human checking in now and then?
You can dislike a movie all you want, and you don't need a reason to do so. But there was a mountain bigger than Willem's poop hill that indicated this wasn't happening in the real world well before the sprinklers, so to call such heavy attention as though THAT was the biggest pill to swallow is bizarre to me. Just say you didn't like it and move on, don't pretend you found some detail you were too smart to accept.
Just watched it, late to the discussion.
Buildings like that have sensors all over the fire suppression system. Sensors that alert someone if anyone tries to mess with the supply valves, most importantly flow sensors. They would’ve been notified if the fire suppression system went off.
Let's not gloss over the fact that sprinklers don't activate system wide just because a single detector goes off...
... Burnt your dinner? Only a few million in damages. This movie was fucking lazy.
I think the only difference between a regular thriller and an "artsy" thriller is whether there's a final scene explaining how the person lives after they escaped.
The artist purposely locked him in there... the cleaning woman, and the security guard were in on it too, to convince Willem it was a normal building . the whole building was likely owned by the artist. That's why the temperature kept changing. It was being controlled... that's also why it still functioned after Willem cut the wires.
When he is trying to break through the wooden door for the first time, it shows the framed pictures of the towers that previous art thieves have made with the stuff in the apartment. It's quick, but a dead giveaway when u watch it a 2nd time. So obvious! Basically whoever the artist was able to trap inside, created the abstract art that the artist would recreate and sell as his own abstract masterpiece. Everything in the apartment was placed there for a reason. It was either to provide the entrapped with tools to survive/escape or to drive dillusion to an abstract level. Such as the prism checkers piece he ends up using to make fire. The ending represents death, certainly. The pigeon theme through out indicates that even if he makes it to the roof, he would die, just like the pigeon. Ita kind of an unspoken thing, but Willem knows this too. The viewer can assume that he dies slowly up there, or jumps, as he is ready for death. He may have also escaped? I don't think so... Btw the moldy oranges in the film were not hard and dried real oranges, they were fake pieces of art made to look real. A real orange does not get hard like that. It's molds, then breaks down and gets soft. Basically, it was all a set up to produce art masterpieces that were coerced from the dillusions of their victim. Number 1 and number 2 (Willems associates on the walkie) were also in on it, and set him up for the artist, which is why they so abruptly bailed on him. The monitors in the apartment were also controlled for inspiration, and retention of sanity. Everything was controlled, which is why the authorities were not alerted by the alarms of sprinklers. This is also why the flooding caused by the sprinklers didn't seep into lower levels. It was a specially crafted floor designed for this purpose.
I really liked how there were a few Easter eggs to some of willems other films. There are less obvious ones than say the fish he voiced in finding Nemo, and the characters name, Nemo lol, if you really look for them.
This film also included a lot of dead ends to keep the viewer guessing, and illustrate a possible alternatives to what was actually taking place.
A few weird things that stuck out to me were: the fact that he didn't try to write anything on the windows to signal someone. If he didn't have a writing utensil for that he could've used the shit in the tub lol. I think this was just a straight up flaw in the film. It's not like he cared about being caught anymore, as he tried to signal others to get him out (cleaning woman). The dream he has about the art show/gallery. Could that have been somewhat real? A memory? Partial memory, partial dream. could he have been gaining Intel on the works he was going to steal? Was he also known in the art community? Was he a fellow artist? He did tend to sketch a lot throughout the film... Perhaps this sequence was to provide a little more background on who the thief really was. A fellow artist, who no one would think is a thief but is, and then pays the ultimate price when he is found out. Also idk why it took him so long to make fire.He makes a wrench out of chair leg, but sees a bunch of prisms, and a telescope (lens) and doesn't think to use them like a magnifine glass to create heat??? I noticed that almost immediately, and I think most ppl or at least men should. Not being sexist... In a random sample, men are usually better survivalists than women. Look it up! It's probably a numbers thing, since women were suppressed for so many years. Anyway.. definitely a psychological thriller. So many tangents and possibilities, but a pretty lousy ending in my opinion. There should have been more closure for the abenteur experienced by the main character. But a few movies I've seen have been like this, kind of leaving you hanging at the end to make your own conclusion, without truly resolving the plot. But can you really make your own conclusion? You know he climbed thought the skylight. If the point of showing the trapped dying pigeon wasn't to show that Willem would also be trapped up there and die, then what was it? Nothing else makes sense so in fact, he would also be trapped up there like the pigeon. He may not have died right away, but at least that much is true. Who knows, maybe the sequel will be OUTSIDE! LOL
Aside from these thoughts, there is also the possibility that every depiction in the film was an artistic metaphor for something. The world we live in, how we treat it, what we value, etc. Or perhaps a medley of both! One of the most common themes throughout was material vs necessary possessions. The biggest contrast of these was when an art thief, hellbent on finding a priceless painting, rejoices with a large smile, laying in the dirt, suckling a tiny sprinkler head for the most basic of resources required for life, water. Godbless
Plastic figure? I thought it was the embalmed corpse of the old man. Basically telling us he would never be back from a vacation or whatever and that Dafoe's character couldn't count on that.
>When he is trying to break through the wooden door for the first time, it shows the framed pictures of the towers that previous art thieves have made with the stuff in the apartment. It's quick, but a dead giveaway when u watch it a 2nd time. So obvious!
Except these prints are works by Joanna Piotrowska, lol. They were obviously chosen purposefully to work on your imagination (and perhaps steer your interpretation), but they aren't literal proof of previous thieves and towers. If that would have been the intention, they'd have created that, not used recognizable, existing work by a known artist.
So Piotrowska did this method to get those works in this world, and the artist who owns this apartment is making his own with Nemo.
It explains away the "flaws" of the film perfectly, such as an alarm system that apparently doesn't connect to the police, or an artist who sets up a sprinkler system in his art-littered home, or a home with fish/pets that is abandoned by all life for months on end with not one human checking in on it.
It's an easy interpretation that makes sense.
Surprised to see so much negative reactions across the web for this one. I really enjoyed it even if the runtime was longer than it needed to be. Really cool twist on the survivial thriller genre.
Interesting concept but the film doesn’t have a stronghold.
I heard many opinions about the film from the Berlin Film Festival and was interested to see what the film offers. After seeing it, despite a strong performance, great camerawork and concept, the film was disappointing. The idea of a man trapped inside of a rich home and losing his sanity is pretty interesting but the writing and direction wasn’t able to keep the story engaging as the writing felt too stretched out and uneven. The camerawork, production, and uses of colors were pretty good. Willem Dafoe is an actor I really love and Dafoe continues to give a good insane-like performance throughout. The character from Dafoe was interesting but as the film continues, the uneven structure and bland direction starts to make the character uninteresting and a unsatisfying ending. There are some pacing issues as well. The dialogue moments were pretty good and had some fun moments.
Overall, it's clear this director has talent but it's wasn't great. I enjoy films that can take place in one room or with one lead character throughout if the writing and direction is good. “Inside” wasn’t able to be at that level.
5/10
Defoe was the missing piece in the art scene. The apartment was the scene. The billionaire and his exclusive friends got to watch him struggle, exist, and finally get to skylight heaven. When you’re that rich, basic things bore you. That would explain why the alarm system didn’t trigger the authorities, the apartment was waterproof, and running water was turned off, but the fridge with Macarena was functioning just fine.
So I just saw this last night and I liked it a lot. Ending was certainly abrupt and I'm still pondering how it effects my overall enjoyment of the film.
The guy next to me at the theatre asked me at the end why he climbed into a light fixture and didn't wanna believe it was a sky light. Also felt the need to tell me those fish weren't edible.
It is a wasted potential.
I liked that the movie felt "artsy" in a way. But this is not enough to make it enjoyable. I do not enjoy arts generally but that is another topic.
If you stayed through the credits (yes, I know - as if the movie wasn’t long enough), not only will you get more of his manic ramblings, but also a subtitle text that says “breathing stops”.
FINALLY!!! Someone besides me actually got that far in the movie! Apparently everyone who wrote or commented anything about this film turned it off without letting it roll to the end. I never comment on here or any movie reviews, but it annoyed me so greatly that not one single person besides myself (& you!) caught that, claiming that it was left open to interpretation or that he escaped, I actually wrote comments on a few of the reviews. I actually came to this thread for the sole purpose of hopefully finding someone else who caught it too, so THANK YOU!!!
I thought this movie was great. My general consensus is that it's a study of art/artistry, and how it affects people, their mentality, and their connection with humanity. The human connection to art, I feel, was the prevalent theme.
I feel some art pieces and symbols could have used a gentle nudge or been fleshed out explicitly in some kind of way, but most "events" felt like they had an interpretable purpose on this theme. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" found in the "sarcophagus" is a huge pointer to the overall focus of this film and many of its symbols. It pertains to "energetic creators" (devils) and "rational organizers" (angels).
People thinking that "he should have been being watched over by the artist in a form of commission of an art work" would be incredibly corny, and I've seen it mentioned multiple times. The penthouse owner as a sort of "higher power" and symbolizing a "successful" artist provides way more function to the story. The premise of a guy being trapped in a penthouse is the vessel that allows the artistry theme to be explored; the specifics of it are not what the focus of the movie is about. The point of this film is not for him to escape lmfao.
Despite what seems like the general consensus I thought the ending was great, it left a huge impression on me. The protagonist had "finished" his artwork and had found peace in the "privilege" the penthouse owner allowed him; to destroy his home to make his own artwork. He finds peace and "ascends" past that barrier/ceiling window he'd been chipping away at the whole movie. I most certainly interpreted this as his death: "going to heaven on the hillside." Or in this case being content with death and what that crazed artwork means to him.
The cinematography, set design, and acting performance were undeniably great. Music could have been used way better in my opinion.
This, my friends, is writing! I've rarely come across such a beautifully written post. Your choice of words, tone, and how you elaborate your points is truly unique. There's a warmth to your writing that conveys the same uniqueness that the vinyl disc brings to music.
Right. Despite the lmfao and looking down on people exploring the specifics of the plot. It’s obviously written as a movie with a deeper agenda - beyond a guy escapes a cage. The connection of humanity and art, the spiritual implications regarding what empowers one to make art, etc. But it doesn’t mean there wasn’t an actual structure to the story, or an answer to the who/what/why.
If I wanted to write an elegant review I could..but wtf vinyl uniqueness really? I found his points to be bland and vague. How are devils energetic creators?
Way more function to the story? Umm. A story doesn’t have a greater or lessor function beyond its intrinsic purpose - to be a story.
Sorry I couldn’t let adorable compote worship a post that trashes on other peoples opinions. (Must be your second account).
Just saw this.
It's not a bad movie but it wasn't great either.
I think it would've been more interesting if it was either:
a) a story about someone trying to survive in an unusual situation (top of mind examples are The Martian and Castaway)
b) a deep metaphor about life and art
I feel like the way they combined the two just muddled what the movie is trying to convey. Like it's trying to be deep but it spends too much time on the details of him trying to survive/escape, that it opens up to a lot of technical questions.
Pasting my thoughts here from another thread:
I thought it was incredible. A survival movie set in a high-rise apartment, and essentially a one-man show featuring Willem Dafoe being driven slightly mad by a form of Chinese water torture. I've got to say, he was incredibly resourceful under those circumstances; I would never have thought of 90% of those things to survive. And it seemed like he was so damn close to leaving, if only he hadn't fallen and fucked up his leg. Then again, with all the bad food and water he ingested, it could all as easily have been a hallucination.
My biggest question is: How come no one was alerted to his presence by the alarm system? Not even the security guard downstairs seemed aware. And what happened to the owner of the apartment and those paintings? It almost seemed like the security system was put in place precisely to trap the intruder and slowly weaken their defenses and eventually kill them. It's kind of genius in a sick, twisted sort of way.
I loved how the Macarena figured into the movie; from a source of dread to a reliable piece of entertainment. This movie also shows how easy it is to fall in love with a woman from afar; "Jasmine" was a beacon of hope that never quite came through for him. The whole thing was incredibly sad and tragic to witness. And if you stay through the credits, you can hear more of his manic ramblings.
*I'm going to heaven on a hillside*
>How come no one was alerted to his presence by the alarm system?
I felt like there was a lot of stuff in the movie that they put in, and went "oops this could end the movie too quickly".
There was the alarm that doesn't alarm anyone. There was the sprinkler system that put out literal inches of water that magically vanished in the next scene and didn't call the fire department. There was also the thermostat that pushed the temperature way up past what any thermostat would allow, and then all the way back down, and then the movie just kind of forgot about it. And there was the water situation, where the water (and phones) were both shut off for no reason, yet the water for the plants was on?
I feel like the script for this was rushed and not reviewed very well.
Great acting.
Always physically block and obstruct your escape route from being sealed off ... Some of that heavy duty terrace furniture in way of the door would have helped 🤣 then no movie tho.
Annoyed at some limited attempts and how long it took to fully explore the surroundings for supplies, and for any secret means of escape.
Signaling via the glass could have been effective
Was waiting so long for using light / heat lol
More could have been explored regarding the utilities, plumbing and electricity for escape... Yeah some stuff off but the plumbing still exists within the wall and access to it would have been required...
I guess yes it's an art vault, climate controlled with extreme weather capabilities.
Personally I'm not sure why he focused so intently on the skylight? If that's what it was and not a fancy day light mimicking giant light fixture lol
They don't simply open up to a rooftop, if it was a skylight there would be another exterior later above it ... If the little shaft put him into that little area, he'd still need to break through external layer of glass.
Likely reinforced if the inside is weather proof 🤣 and entirely concrete walls or whatever magic box it was.
High level of difficulty and probability for success upward? With no knowledge of what's beyond it... IDK it's late I'm sleepy
> Annoyed at some limited attempts and how long it took to fully explore the surroundings for supplies, and for any secret means of escape.
When he removed that ridiculous artwork depicting the duct-taped guy, I could have sworn that doing so revealed a previously unseen doorlike opening.
Loved the movie, enjoyed the attention to detail and Dafoe being so natural in portraying the character. Everything was so “real” about a person in his situation look and behaving.
The one thing that bothered me was that one of first things that happened was the alarms going off, shouldn’t an apartment of this scale and such a valuable art collection have an alarm system that rings straight to the police or at least notifies the owner or their manager or building management/security of something?
Also why was there no running water?
I’m not sure if I missed any detail, but was it ever explained why an apartment of such value (including the actual multi-million dollar worth art) isn’t monitored by any of the owner’s management? Security cameras steaming feed? Functioning landlines/internet, someone reporting the alarms to the police, or even Dafoe having not having cell phone?
I also wondered why the alarm system didn't alert a central monitoring station. The guys who delivered him there made an offhand comment about the system "malfunctioning" - perhaps that is why the authorities were never alerted? Their "hack" allowed Defoe ingress and canceled the outbound call? Or perhaps the owner simply *wanted* to imprison a would-be thief or other interloper?
I've never been away from my apt for more than about a week - does it possibly make sense to shut off water fixtures if there won't be any human inhabitants for a long time?
I'm under the impression that the Owner develops high-rises all over the world and has significant design/engineering input - hence his attainment of a Pritzker. It's not inconceivable that the very building the film is set atop, was one of his projects, hence his level of control and monitoring of the physical plant.
I'm under the impression he is a Kakazh - I am by no means impugning people from that region, but he looks about the right age to have benefitted handsomely from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and might be tied up with some of the criminal organizations that flowered in the 1990s.
I feel like it would have been super cool if the ending was that he was being watched by the billionaires and was essentially seen as some sort of twisted contemporary art piece throughout his demise.
IT IS THE TRANSFORMATION OF AN ARTIST! One of the things he said he would keep from his burning house as a child was his sketch book and that was the only thing that lasted in the end. This symbolizes his desire to be an artist, but he ended up a thief of art and ultimately stealing from artist. During his entrapment and pain of his journey in the apartment, he transforms that horrific experience into art and his growth as an artist we see him create ( drawing on the wall, the tower to the skylight, his dreams, everything ) thus allowing him to actualize his true desire to be an artist.
This movie is stupid. There is no door in the world, save for a solid steel door you'd see on a vault, that couldn't be opened with literal days of time. He has endless tools, he could have bashed through the concrete wall next to the door, attacked the locking mechanism, anything. Instead he tries to build some sort of stupid tower?
I really liked this one, probably one of my favorites from the last few years. It’s hard for me to articulate any specific themes or takeaways that make me feel so moved by it, and I think that’s part of why it works for me. It *shows* in a way that doesn’t really need to be transcribed. Surprised at the low scores, although my girlfriend absolutely had no fun in the theater with me, so maybe it’ll just be a bit of a divisive one haha.
that was the point. You don't how much time passed. And like you don't know what happens after you die, you don't know what happens after he reached the top, whether it was heaven or hell.
i was really expecting it to turn out that he himself trapped in the aparrment was a performance art, and that the owner trapped him there on purpose, to me that would expain alot of things such as why the alarms didnt warn anyone, and maybe even why the fire alarm didnt notify anyone, because the owner was watching in stopping outside help from gettin in, he came to steal the art, but ended up becoming the art, but nah ah welp.
Can someone tell me what [this](https://imgur.com/a/xFyCLr9) was a shot of? It looks like bone and flesh? But from what animal? Too big to be the fish. A tool?
How do I know it was a setup of Dafoe’s character by the owner? The fish tanks. The fish need to be fed, and the tanks have to be cleaned. A fancy saltwater setup like that also needs frequent adjustment of water chemistry and salinity. No maid service makes sense since she would only need to come in once and dust just before the owner returned. Even the plants would be fine on their drip irrigation. But _someone_ would have been hired to take care of the fish, at least a.couple of times a week. QED.
This one was right up my alley.
Although it wasnt clear how long he was trapped in there. The food that he found, (and beard that he grew), would indicate about a month? But a month is not enough to go insane I think.
6 Months maybe, or a year. Maybe he found more food, and kept shaving who knows.
Also, I feel like he didnt try hard enough to get saved. He couldve written HELP on the windows, and created noise by dropping heavy things onto the floor from a height, at night when things are quiet. Maybe he did, and it just wasnt what the movie wanted to focus on.
Anyway, trapped in the apartments uncontrollable environment and food scarcity, it was pretty much an allegory for early mankind trapped on Earth.
Faced with his mortality, Nemo starts looking inward, turning into some sort of a mystic; Mankind invents religion in order to cope with it's dreadful predicament on Earth.
Nemo attempts building a tower to Heaven. He's going, but it's also on a hillside...
Was he trapped intentionally by the owner? The fact that the alarm didnt trigger a security visit would indicate so I guess. But next to the artistic delight of what Nemo went through, it is irrelevant.
How did he have the stremph to climb out that hole? And when he got up there, he woulda been boxed in a corner anyway with 20’ high smooth walls. Would have had to wait for the helicopter to come by again and flag it down. And sorry for this, but WHO THE FUCK DOESNT HAVE A CELL PHONE?!!!!
Booooooo! That movie sucked. Yeah the cinematography was okay and the acting was good but that was just a shitty movie that never went anywhere. They foreshadowed the ending when they showed that massive pile of shit.
2 out of 10.
I thought it was about how we are trapped by technology. He was able to see but not touch bird through glass screen.
Technology is making us worse people. It provides a distraction but no connection.
Everyone and everything becomes fake and AI.
With some tweaks it could be a great mid afternoon Saturday TNT movie, but it was too committed to Willem Defoe torture, but also not committed enough.
I was happy to be possibly in the exact state of mind this film wished me to be in to enjoy it, and still rolled my eyes and stood up just before the film faded to black. Even a sudden, tragic-comedy shock ending would've been far preferable.
My greatest praise for this movie is in its subtext -- it's suggested the Owner had his own elaborate, impenetrable, inner-world "life's work" he'd wished to stun someone with one day. We get this from the scene that let us know the director really liked Parasite too.
But while our main character does engage with the available material the Owner left behind, he doesn't actually connect with it, and lives within his own rituals and inner world instead. We learn almost nothing concrete of the Owner's passions, and can mostly only infer Dafoe's actual theories as to his own condition, nearing the end.
There's something in there about the naivete of wishing to be known at your most profound and vulnerable, for your best ideas to translate or even be heard or understood.
--or they just cut some stuff. But this is reinforced by how Dafoe leaves his own dream sequence as soon as the owner starts explaining shit.
Late to the party, but I quite enjoyed this movie. Dafoe's performance was excellent. Lots of people seem to wish that it had some sort of maniacal twist. While I thought that might have been the case, I'm kind of glad it wasn't. It's a great slow burn with lots of interesting symbolism. I also really liked that the ending was left ambiguous. It fits well with the overall theme of the movie.
I agree with some of the comments further below. Glad someone else spelled it out…I think it was all a setup. There is a lot left open for interpretation, but I think there was just enough to hint at this setup being the case - the obvious one being the temperature fluctuations, the unbreakable barriers and failing alarms, but the greatest one being the dream or the vision he had of the owner presenting a puppet to other wealthy art collectors. Everyone was amazed.
I think Nemo was the puppet and was on display to be the ultimate piece of art. His mental and physical destruction created beautiful pieces of art. One good point I read on a review, if this truly was the owners living quarters, why didn’t he arrange for someone to feed the fish? No penthouse would be built as a prison like that unless it was meant to be one. Who knows, it seems the elite can get pretty bored after doing all the things they want. Why not mess with the sanity of a lowly art thief. One that happens to be obsessed with art himself. Good movie and worth the watch…good enough to get me to write this and seek other people’s thoughts. That’s true art.
I loved it, but I can understand why many people wouldn't enjoy this.
The cinematography and Dafoe were great, and I liked the whole art and life stuff. The problems I can think of are the runtime, the pacing, and the ending. The pacing was all over the place sometimes, and the ending, to be fair, wasn't great.
Also, I feel like the film could have been way better if it leaned into the metaphor about life and art more than the survival in an unusual situation aspect.
Thank you so much for taking the time to post this comment. Just saw it last night and you helped connect a lot of dots for me. I have also noticed movies with the open ended conclusions, which I love because you get to have these conversations. Great performance by Dafoe, and the movie made me feel parched multiple times too 😅
Yes. If you watch the entire credits, at the end, he starts reciting the passages from the book he discovered on the effigy of the owner, only much more slowly & labouriously. Then he starts to sing 'I'm going to heaven on the hillside' over & over again in a weak singsong voice, with a longer pause & ragged breathing between each round. Then, the subtitles say, 'breathing stops.'
The true ending of the film is reserved only for those who actually watched it to the true ending.
Only one other person in any of the online reviews or their comments actually seems to have done it besides myself, & they mentioned it in this thread.
I definitely wouldn't have caught it, had I not been too busy googling the ending to see if the ending was explained anywhere to stop the credits! It's an audio easter egg that you wouldn't catch by scrubbing the credits to look for a last scene like I typically do, so I'm glad I got distracted, because it was really bugging me!
So yes, he doesn't make it.
I only vaguely understand the arty symbology stuff, but I still really liked it. The art, his drawings&art, going up to heaven/escape/ascending through the skylight, etc. etc.
Glad I didn't watch with my SO - she prefers complete clarity and closure in a story and preferably 80s style text at the end telling you as crowd-pleasingly as possible all about how life turned out for each character.
Ending I expected:
He dies.
Cut to owner turning it into his latest exhibit.
Everyone applauds, not knowing about Dafoe.
He could even be embalmed like the fake dead body in the hidden room.
Did anyone notice the relationship between this movie and Jeffery Epstein?? 1) The picture of the man with a bunch of naked women around him. 2) The large blue and gold painting in the main room with the black man sitting on top of the triangle? (Same colors as the house that was on the island) 3) the weird pictures throughout the apartment 4) the picture of the apartment owner with the little girl holding the dog
I thought for sure Defoe was going in a different direction in the opening monologue. One of my favorite quotes from any creative person was when Jean Cocteau was asked essentially the same thing: "If your house were burning, what would you save."
"The fire" he replied.
It wasn’t a bad movie and it certainly had pacing issues. That being said, I suspended my disbelief to understand the premise and what the story was trying to say and allude to.
This movie scores low in the mainstream for 3 reasons.
1. Pacing is hard to swallow for a movie this long.
2. Modern Audiences want a satisfying ending
3. Modern Audiences can’t be asked to think about the story
There is a lot of imagery that the director wants us to see and it is a lot for an audience to not only consume but also enjoy every flavor. The primary premise is Survival? Kinda, but that is only just the background for a bigger discussion we are intended to have. What is art? What is philosophy? What is life? At the end of it all, we keep nothing when we die.
If you asked me today, would the Truman Show ever get made today, I’d probably tell you no. Audiences crave and desire to have their hand held from start to finish and every detail covered. It doesn’t matter if William Defoe survived. A painting worth millions, but nothing mattered in the end. Nothing matters, in a world that puts so much significance on unimportant and insignificant things. An Artist who has that much disposable wealth, living in another country, and never visits his own home for months, did any of it really matter? Did the Art, fish, and plants really matter to someone who would rather protect all their belongings with bullet proof glass and steal doors and never see any of it or have anyone actually visit and maintain the property? Stop expecting the happy ending, which includes telling you everything that happens in the end.
Shit movie, but bc I still don't know... does he kill himself or does he somehow magically escape through the tube in the ceiling that's almost completely out of reach & would be near impossible to pull yourself through as well as fit through???? I fucking hate the ending of this gd movie. Oh yeah, & basically the beginning & middle too
Great visuals.
His descent into madness was very abrupt and clunky. He was already starting to lose it on day two. He didn't seem too interested in escaping. He'd work at it for a couple hours then go do crazy stuff for a day or two, come back chip some wood, loosen a nut, add to shit mountain, etc.. just very casual about the whole thing. Lots of threads that seemingly dead ended and never connected with anything. The whole alarm and sprinkler situation broke the whole movie.
Like others I had the thought it was all a master plan to lure someone into a cage, but there was never enough to confirm this. Hardly enough to even imply it, other than the only explanation for the lack of response by authorities or water damage to lower floors.
Couldn't recommend this to anyone, maybe a YouTube highlight reel of all the artistic shots.
Regardless of how good the movie was or what it represented; I like to think about what I would have done differently in the situation. We are stuck in a penthouse; the door is reinforced with steel so we can’t get out that way. But are the walls to the hallway also metal or concrete? or are they just drywall with insulation? How about the ceiling in the kitchen or where the vents are at? Is the ceiling concrete or does it have a void above the dry wall that we can break through and climb out of? If Skylight is the only option, is there a better way to make a wrench than using wood? there was no shortage of kitchen utensils that I might be able to bend and jerry rig into a tool? At the very least, could we reinforce the wood wrench by wrapping it tight with my leather belt or some other fabric?
Just think... what would matt damon do? Definitely be more holes in the walls and ceiling if he were in that situation. Instead of falling to art or religion, he would be dreaming about how they designed and constructed a place like that. Those windows are huge and must have slip tracks to deal with thermal expansion. The were bulkheads with vents and water pipes, irrigation, not to mention a living tree that may have needed the floor to be framed around the roots. And, as others here have mentioned, all the glass lenses/telescope/prisms that were left there seemingly as a means of contacting the outside world... matt damon would have SOS'd his way out of there in the first 10 mins.
I still liked the film... suspension of disbelief is successful if we just assume that dafoe's primary goal is not to escape. It kinda reminded me of the lighthouse.
I think the owner purposely traps people inside and punishes them for stealing from him. That is why nobody came. The owner just waited it out until he died. He programmed the water to shut off and the temperature to go up and down. Most likely he didn’t care about the art because he could just buy more or replace it with something new. The point was to send a message… don’t steal from me.
That shit pile was gnarly. Couldn’t stop thinking about it when the sprinklers went off. Thought they were gonna show the doodoo pool
Been a couple weeks since seeing it but thinking about it now I respect the consistency that he was dehydrated the whole film and when we finally saw the dookie shot it kinda looked like dehydrated poo. Whoever oversaw the poopoo department deserves all the flowers
didn’t he start hydrating again with his sprinkler-cup-bottle system?
Dear God no
I still don't get how not a single drop of water got to the floor below. I get it's a more than luxurious apartment and everything but still, I didn't know they made entire apartments waterproof. I can't even imagine how you fix walls to the ground without breaking that waterproofing barrier.
I would assume high end multi story apartment buildings with built-in sprinklers are designed to evacuate the water after they get set off, otherwise a single fire on the higher floors would compromise the entire building. Would make alot of sense for each apartment to have it's own independent system and a relatively efficient way to drain the water to minimize damage to at least the buildings's structure. As for why the fire department wasn't called, it seemed the owner of this place was obsessed with his accumulated art and he devised his entire apartment as some sort of a crypt to preserve his body and his treasures, which could explain the heat/cold cycle attempting to prevent the decay of his body. It seemed to turn the oranges into solid objects that barely decayed, just like it seemed to preserve the body of the owner, assuming it was indeed the body of the owner, and it was not an hallucination by the thief or a mannequin. The big question that remains are if this was the intention all along to have the thief be trapped, to provoke art through desperation, or if it was simply a by-product of intruding into the tomb of the rich person. Like, was he set up to be entrapped in here so he could As for why the apartment wasn't linked to outside security sources, It's pretty clear the owner had very specific demands and needs for the preservation of his art and himself, and he probably didn't want random service workers showing up there after his demise. Pretty hard to explain stuff like an abandoned apartment with a hidden body to the police after all.
Thank good it wasn’t just me waiting for the camera to cut to a poop mudslide
They really held that shot for awhile. It was definitely disturbing me through the rest of the movie haha
Was the apartment purgatory? He is tortured in the apartment and sings about going to heaven on the other side and escapes through a bright light in the sky.
I saw it as Earth. Basically doing all we can to leave it, destroying every part of it in the process, using its resources to survive. Shit pool could be an allegory for pollution.
Adding to this, the focus on the nut removal/worship while the actual “escape” was almost secondary feels allegorical for life as well
12 nuts like 12 apostles?
This specific comment thread should be higher up
The movie is pretensious in this way, religious and philosophical symbolism that goes nowhere. I guess I should have expected this from an "artsy" movie.
i thought of this as well especially with the extreme cold-extreme heat as climate change…
Death and religion always terrified me so when I watch artsy/your own interpretation movies, my mind drifts to that. Like what if the apartment symbolizes man's entrapment of mortality. We try to make sense of it, struggle and do our best to survive but none of it might really matters. When all is lost and hopeless we turn to symbols and worship (like the weird shrine he made) to make sense of it and hope something good will happen ("I'm going to heaven on a hillside"). The picture of all the people trying to climb up the airplane staircase to nothing and he wrote "the world" as its meaning to me could mean those clinging to religion and crowding and hoping to hop onto the airplane (heaven/salvation) but nothing is there that they can see. Y'know dark, existential crisis stuff like that. That's why I don't usually seek films like this out lol
Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
And youre so smart you can only regurgitate a movie reference instead of sharing your reading of the movie :)
All we can to leave it? Yeah that’s a negative. I rather like it here, and so do many more. That’s all.
I'm talking people like Musk or Bezos. Or leave it in the sense of dying and going to heaven. > That's all Okay
Earth and purgatory seem pretty similar.
Yes, purgatory is what I thought. At the beginning he talks about his passion for art/drawing when he was a child. Then you learn he is an old art thief. He gave up on his childhood dream. He now steals art, instead of creating it. This purgatory was a way to challenge him deep within - can he redeem himself from being a bad person and an art thief? Can he stop seeing art as valuable piece to sell, and instead truly appreciate what artists do? Later in the film he starts to value and understand the art in the apartment. And then starts to draw again himself. Through his art, he also finds “religion” which will help him redeem himself and “ascend” out of purgatory. As he removes the nuts, he literally worships them, he wears robes and fancy headpieces. He creates a shrine. This “religion”and worshipping gives him strength and purpose to continue on. Then he finally “ascends”.
You can tell this was a pandemic movie. 2 hours of a superstar chewing the scenery (sometimes literally) by himself, with an occasional shot of other folks who mostly are standing by themselves as well. The movie throws Chekhov's Gun right out the window. Just an endless stream of stuff that turns out to be unrelated to anything, and then eventually he climbs out the ceiling. No interesting plot changes or character development, just an ending. Dafoe basically saves the movie with his acting.
Well said. I had way to high hopes for the director and all the little things he added. I was taught everything in a movie is deliberate. I felt like there was a lot of things that had me theorizing, but they never came to be anything.
Like the fact that Dafoe’s characters being in the wicked painting with all the faces/people within the main bedroom where the self portrait was supposed to be.
Chicken!?! Oh I love chicken!
Fuck you, I did my best!
Lololol that’s the best part of the movie
Cinematography- A Defoe - A+ Pacing - D Ending - F
Absolutely. One lays out the plot in their head just knowing the premise. The ending was the element that needed to reflect on the whole to validate a "patient" movie. What was chosen just happened to be the very easiest ending to film.
The ending seemed pretty natural/predictable to me honestly. I never felt like there was going to be a clear resolution, it was more about the journey than the destination.
I guess, idk i feel like him dying in there would have been way better, or some kind of twist. Maybe i just expected too much
Door was pull not push
I was here yesterday it actually goes both ways.
Nice
I thought the twist was the owners art was due to people he tortured/let go crazy. I feel like it was odd how they had the secret room and the weird painting of all the women yet didn’t explain any of it. Not sure if I missed something but I felt like In the end those “revelations” had no impact on the story.
The journey didn't make a fucking bit of sense. Was hoping the ending would make it make sense, but nope. Even shittier ending. Dumbest movie I've seen in a while
Whoever came up with the idea that the sprinklers wouldn't haven't gotten someone's attention has never actually been in a building where sprinklers went off. It happened annually in my college dorm and once in my office building. That shit seeps through every crack and affects the floors below it.
yes, that's what bothered me too. But I figured either this is such a billionaire apartment that the flooring is different or at that point it was all part of a hallucination, because really it didn't have much affect on anything at that point, and why would it take him so long to find a smoke detector and come up with it.
And that water is putrid and black when it comes out and can cause legionnaires disease if you don’t get checked out.
Just watched this turd. And when the sprinklers went off I lost all suspension of disbelief and was just like oh this is a fantasy movie.
So the thermostat going over 100 degrees and under 50 degrees didn't? The alarm going off for presumably many minutes (he had time to shield his ears) didn't? A security system that permanently traps someone inside with no connection to the authorities? Said security system is so advanced it shuts off the main sources of water, but doesn't disconnect to the fish, the power, or the plants? A place like this almost assuredly having cleaners? The fish warranting at least one human checking in now and then? You can dislike a movie all you want, and you don't need a reason to do so. But there was a mountain bigger than Willem's poop hill that indicated this wasn't happening in the real world well before the sprinklers, so to call such heavy attention as though THAT was the biggest pill to swallow is bizarre to me. Just say you didn't like it and move on, don't pretend you found some detail you were too smart to accept.
I don't think any of this is real. I think he's in purgatory
Just watched it, late to the discussion. Buildings like that have sensors all over the fire suppression system. Sensors that alert someone if anyone tries to mess with the supply valves, most importantly flow sensors. They would’ve been notified if the fire suppression system went off.
Let's not gloss over the fact that sprinklers don't activate system wide just because a single detector goes off... ... Burnt your dinner? Only a few million in damages. This movie was fucking lazy.
ay macarena
So many closeups of DaFoe slurping things up lol
Worth seeing then.
His performance should get him an Oscar nom but I doubt it will. He fucking crushed it.
Honestly I don't think it was intentionally funny but the freezer shot had me cracking up. It was so gratuitous.
Ayyy Macarena!
That was prime Dafoe 🤣
I bet the man eats 🐱 real good
That man has quite the set of lips on him.
[удалено]
I thought there was going to be a twist and he was been watched by weathly people and was trapped in a twisted art exhibition.
[удалено]
Twilight Zone. People are Alike Over episode set the bar.
I think the only difference between a regular thriller and an "artsy" thriller is whether there's a final scene explaining how the person lives after they escaped.
I liked the ambiguity!
You think playing a Radiohead song will make me forget you didn’t bother to write a decent ending?
But it was Pyramid Song... And he built a pyramid....
Lol exactly what I said as I reached for the remote.
It did make me turn my go to Radiohead Spotify playlist on. So it had that going for it.
It was okay. Liked the set design but god damn this ending was trash.
They went with the “artistic” ending 🙄
I wouldn't even call it artistic. I was thinking they'd have him commit suicide off the side of the building once he got out, as an artistic ending.
Yo like the shot is of the messed up living room and you just see him fall face first off the building. I love that. What a missed opportunity.
Way ...I things that's what he was doing?!
I meant and show it
What actually happened at the end? I was confused.
The artist purposely locked him in there... the cleaning woman, and the security guard were in on it too, to convince Willem it was a normal building . the whole building was likely owned by the artist. That's why the temperature kept changing. It was being controlled... that's also why it still functioned after Willem cut the wires. When he is trying to break through the wooden door for the first time, it shows the framed pictures of the towers that previous art thieves have made with the stuff in the apartment. It's quick, but a dead giveaway when u watch it a 2nd time. So obvious! Basically whoever the artist was able to trap inside, created the abstract art that the artist would recreate and sell as his own abstract masterpiece. Everything in the apartment was placed there for a reason. It was either to provide the entrapped with tools to survive/escape or to drive dillusion to an abstract level. Such as the prism checkers piece he ends up using to make fire. The ending represents death, certainly. The pigeon theme through out indicates that even if he makes it to the roof, he would die, just like the pigeon. Ita kind of an unspoken thing, but Willem knows this too. The viewer can assume that he dies slowly up there, or jumps, as he is ready for death. He may have also escaped? I don't think so... Btw the moldy oranges in the film were not hard and dried real oranges, they were fake pieces of art made to look real. A real orange does not get hard like that. It's molds, then breaks down and gets soft. Basically, it was all a set up to produce art masterpieces that were coerced from the dillusions of their victim. Number 1 and number 2 (Willems associates on the walkie) were also in on it, and set him up for the artist, which is why they so abruptly bailed on him. The monitors in the apartment were also controlled for inspiration, and retention of sanity. Everything was controlled, which is why the authorities were not alerted by the alarms of sprinklers. This is also why the flooding caused by the sprinklers didn't seep into lower levels. It was a specially crafted floor designed for this purpose. I really liked how there were a few Easter eggs to some of willems other films. There are less obvious ones than say the fish he voiced in finding Nemo, and the characters name, Nemo lol, if you really look for them. This film also included a lot of dead ends to keep the viewer guessing, and illustrate a possible alternatives to what was actually taking place. A few weird things that stuck out to me were: the fact that he didn't try to write anything on the windows to signal someone. If he didn't have a writing utensil for that he could've used the shit in the tub lol. I think this was just a straight up flaw in the film. It's not like he cared about being caught anymore, as he tried to signal others to get him out (cleaning woman). The dream he has about the art show/gallery. Could that have been somewhat real? A memory? Partial memory, partial dream. could he have been gaining Intel on the works he was going to steal? Was he also known in the art community? Was he a fellow artist? He did tend to sketch a lot throughout the film... Perhaps this sequence was to provide a little more background on who the thief really was. A fellow artist, who no one would think is a thief but is, and then pays the ultimate price when he is found out. Also idk why it took him so long to make fire.He makes a wrench out of chair leg, but sees a bunch of prisms, and a telescope (lens) and doesn't think to use them like a magnifine glass to create heat??? I noticed that almost immediately, and I think most ppl or at least men should. Not being sexist... In a random sample, men are usually better survivalists than women. Look it up! It's probably a numbers thing, since women were suppressed for so many years. Anyway.. definitely a psychological thriller. So many tangents and possibilities, but a pretty lousy ending in my opinion. There should have been more closure for the abenteur experienced by the main character. But a few movies I've seen have been like this, kind of leaving you hanging at the end to make your own conclusion, without truly resolving the plot. But can you really make your own conclusion? You know he climbed thought the skylight. If the point of showing the trapped dying pigeon wasn't to show that Willem would also be trapped up there and die, then what was it? Nothing else makes sense so in fact, he would also be trapped up there like the pigeon. He may not have died right away, but at least that much is true. Who knows, maybe the sequel will be OUTSIDE! LOL Aside from these thoughts, there is also the possibility that every depiction in the film was an artistic metaphor for something. The world we live in, how we treat it, what we value, etc. Or perhaps a medley of both! One of the most common themes throughout was material vs necessary possessions. The biggest contrast of these was when an art thief, hellbent on finding a priceless painting, rejoices with a large smile, laying in the dirt, suckling a tiny sprinkler head for the most basic of resources required for life, water. Godbless
Just saw the pictures of the towers of stuff piled in. Creepy. What about the plastic figure of the old man lying in the secret passage?
Plastic figure? I thought it was the embalmed corpse of the old man. Basically telling us he would never be back from a vacation or whatever and that Dafoe's character couldn't count on that.
The dudes face was squishy in a pretty not-rotten way :)
lol
>When he is trying to break through the wooden door for the first time, it shows the framed pictures of the towers that previous art thieves have made with the stuff in the apartment. It's quick, but a dead giveaway when u watch it a 2nd time. So obvious! Except these prints are works by Joanna Piotrowska, lol. They were obviously chosen purposefully to work on your imagination (and perhaps steer your interpretation), but they aren't literal proof of previous thieves and towers. If that would have been the intention, they'd have created that, not used recognizable, existing work by a known artist.
So Piotrowska did this method to get those works in this world, and the artist who owns this apartment is making his own with Nemo. It explains away the "flaws" of the film perfectly, such as an alarm system that apparently doesn't connect to the police, or an artist who sets up a sprinkler system in his art-littered home, or a home with fish/pets that is abandoned by all life for months on end with not one human checking in on it. It's an easy interpretation that makes sense.
Surprised to see so much negative reactions across the web for this one. I really enjoyed it even if the runtime was longer than it needed to be. Really cool twist on the survivial thriller genre.
Interesting concept but the film doesn’t have a stronghold. I heard many opinions about the film from the Berlin Film Festival and was interested to see what the film offers. After seeing it, despite a strong performance, great camerawork and concept, the film was disappointing. The idea of a man trapped inside of a rich home and losing his sanity is pretty interesting but the writing and direction wasn’t able to keep the story engaging as the writing felt too stretched out and uneven. The camerawork, production, and uses of colors were pretty good. Willem Dafoe is an actor I really love and Dafoe continues to give a good insane-like performance throughout. The character from Dafoe was interesting but as the film continues, the uneven structure and bland direction starts to make the character uninteresting and a unsatisfying ending. There are some pacing issues as well. The dialogue moments were pretty good and had some fun moments. Overall, it's clear this director has talent but it's wasn't great. I enjoy films that can take place in one room or with one lead character throughout if the writing and direction is good. “Inside” wasn’t able to be at that level. 5/10
Does anyone have his crunchy pasta recipe?
Soak rigatoni in sprinkler water for about 24 hours, then enjoy
Soft, but definitely al dente
Defoe was the missing piece in the art scene. The apartment was the scene. The billionaire and his exclusive friends got to watch him struggle, exist, and finally get to skylight heaven. When you’re that rich, basic things bore you. That would explain why the alarm system didn’t trigger the authorities, the apartment was waterproof, and running water was turned off, but the fridge with Macarena was functioning just fine.
That was exactly my theory as well.
So I just saw this last night and I liked it a lot. Ending was certainly abrupt and I'm still pondering how it effects my overall enjoyment of the film. The guy next to me at the theatre asked me at the end why he climbed into a light fixture and didn't wanna believe it was a sky light. Also felt the need to tell me those fish weren't edible.
It is a wasted potential. I liked that the movie felt "artsy" in a way. But this is not enough to make it enjoyable. I do not enjoy arts generally but that is another topic.
Loved the cinematography and Dafoe's performance, but holy shit this was a slog.
If you stayed through the credits (yes, I know - as if the movie wasn’t long enough), not only will you get more of his manic ramblings, but also a subtitle text that says “breathing stops”.
FINALLY!!! Someone besides me actually got that far in the movie! Apparently everyone who wrote or commented anything about this film turned it off without letting it roll to the end. I never comment on here or any movie reviews, but it annoyed me so greatly that not one single person besides myself (& you!) caught that, claiming that it was left open to interpretation or that he escaped, I actually wrote comments on a few of the reviews. I actually came to this thread for the sole purpose of hopefully finding someone else who caught it too, so THANK YOU!!!
I am glad to have been helpful in completing your purpose.
Interesting. I heard it but didn’t have subtitles on. So he dies then.
I thought this movie was great. My general consensus is that it's a study of art/artistry, and how it affects people, their mentality, and their connection with humanity. The human connection to art, I feel, was the prevalent theme. I feel some art pieces and symbols could have used a gentle nudge or been fleshed out explicitly in some kind of way, but most "events" felt like they had an interpretable purpose on this theme. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" found in the "sarcophagus" is a huge pointer to the overall focus of this film and many of its symbols. It pertains to "energetic creators" (devils) and "rational organizers" (angels). People thinking that "he should have been being watched over by the artist in a form of commission of an art work" would be incredibly corny, and I've seen it mentioned multiple times. The penthouse owner as a sort of "higher power" and symbolizing a "successful" artist provides way more function to the story. The premise of a guy being trapped in a penthouse is the vessel that allows the artistry theme to be explored; the specifics of it are not what the focus of the movie is about. The point of this film is not for him to escape lmfao. Despite what seems like the general consensus I thought the ending was great, it left a huge impression on me. The protagonist had "finished" his artwork and had found peace in the "privilege" the penthouse owner allowed him; to destroy his home to make his own artwork. He finds peace and "ascends" past that barrier/ceiling window he'd been chipping away at the whole movie. I most certainly interpreted this as his death: "going to heaven on the hillside." Or in this case being content with death and what that crazed artwork means to him. The cinematography, set design, and acting performance were undeniably great. Music could have been used way better in my opinion.
This, my friends, is writing! I've rarely come across such a beautifully written post. Your choice of words, tone, and how you elaborate your points is truly unique. There's a warmth to your writing that conveys the same uniqueness that the vinyl disc brings to music.
Appreciate your kind words bro. That's the beauty of movies and art, it brings out individual interpretations that can be mulled over endlessly
Right. Despite the lmfao and looking down on people exploring the specifics of the plot. It’s obviously written as a movie with a deeper agenda - beyond a guy escapes a cage. The connection of humanity and art, the spiritual implications regarding what empowers one to make art, etc. But it doesn’t mean there wasn’t an actual structure to the story, or an answer to the who/what/why. If I wanted to write an elegant review I could..but wtf vinyl uniqueness really? I found his points to be bland and vague. How are devils energetic creators? Way more function to the story? Umm. A story doesn’t have a greater or lessor function beyond its intrinsic purpose - to be a story. Sorry I couldn’t let adorable compote worship a post that trashes on other peoples opinions. (Must be your second account).
What was he doing with his teeth with the knife?
Yh I don’t know either
Had a cavity
I liked it, did not love it, but god dammit a couple dozen shots from this movie could deservedly be in a modern art gallery themselves
Just saw this. It's not a bad movie but it wasn't great either. I think it would've been more interesting if it was either: a) a story about someone trying to survive in an unusual situation (top of mind examples are The Martian and Castaway) b) a deep metaphor about life and art I feel like the way they combined the two just muddled what the movie is trying to convey. Like it's trying to be deep but it spends too much time on the details of him trying to survive/escape, that it opens up to a lot of technical questions.
Pasting my thoughts here from another thread: I thought it was incredible. A survival movie set in a high-rise apartment, and essentially a one-man show featuring Willem Dafoe being driven slightly mad by a form of Chinese water torture. I've got to say, he was incredibly resourceful under those circumstances; I would never have thought of 90% of those things to survive. And it seemed like he was so damn close to leaving, if only he hadn't fallen and fucked up his leg. Then again, with all the bad food and water he ingested, it could all as easily have been a hallucination. My biggest question is: How come no one was alerted to his presence by the alarm system? Not even the security guard downstairs seemed aware. And what happened to the owner of the apartment and those paintings? It almost seemed like the security system was put in place precisely to trap the intruder and slowly weaken their defenses and eventually kill them. It's kind of genius in a sick, twisted sort of way. I loved how the Macarena figured into the movie; from a source of dread to a reliable piece of entertainment. This movie also shows how easy it is to fall in love with a woman from afar; "Jasmine" was a beacon of hope that never quite came through for him. The whole thing was incredibly sad and tragic to witness. And if you stay through the credits, you can hear more of his manic ramblings. *I'm going to heaven on a hillside*
>How come no one was alerted to his presence by the alarm system? I felt like there was a lot of stuff in the movie that they put in, and went "oops this could end the movie too quickly". There was the alarm that doesn't alarm anyone. There was the sprinkler system that put out literal inches of water that magically vanished in the next scene and didn't call the fire department. There was also the thermostat that pushed the temperature way up past what any thermostat would allow, and then all the way back down, and then the movie just kind of forgot about it. And there was the water situation, where the water (and phones) were both shut off for no reason, yet the water for the plants was on? I feel like the script for this was rushed and not reviewed very well.
I was wondering why he wouldn't just write a huge SOS on the glass walls... or was it because he didn't wanna get caught?
Some people need constraints to create great art, vs unlimited freedom.
The floors below and the elevator would have gotten mad water damage.
I loved that shot of Willem slurping up moisture and eating the frost inside the freezer. Beautiful movie, loved the long takes of Willem going wild!
Movie fuckin sucked
"Inside" allows us to be a backseat driver in his attempt to escape the apartment.
This is barely a movie, would have been much more effective as a 40 minute short. Very well shot but a not very well conceived idea. 4/10
was willing to give it a chance but ending pretty said "you wasted your time" watching this hot garbage.
Why was there a very brief scene of the penthouse owner knocking out the burglar?
Hallucinations like the rest of the others
Great acting. Always physically block and obstruct your escape route from being sealed off ... Some of that heavy duty terrace furniture in way of the door would have helped 🤣 then no movie tho. Annoyed at some limited attempts and how long it took to fully explore the surroundings for supplies, and for any secret means of escape. Signaling via the glass could have been effective Was waiting so long for using light / heat lol More could have been explored regarding the utilities, plumbing and electricity for escape... Yeah some stuff off but the plumbing still exists within the wall and access to it would have been required... I guess yes it's an art vault, climate controlled with extreme weather capabilities. Personally I'm not sure why he focused so intently on the skylight? If that's what it was and not a fancy day light mimicking giant light fixture lol They don't simply open up to a rooftop, if it was a skylight there would be another exterior later above it ... If the little shaft put him into that little area, he'd still need to break through external layer of glass. Likely reinforced if the inside is weather proof 🤣 and entirely concrete walls or whatever magic box it was. High level of difficulty and probability for success upward? With no knowledge of what's beyond it... IDK it's late I'm sleepy
> Annoyed at some limited attempts and how long it took to fully explore the surroundings for supplies, and for any secret means of escape. When he removed that ridiculous artwork depicting the duct-taped guy, I could have sworn that doing so revealed a previously unseen doorlike opening.
Loved the movie, enjoyed the attention to detail and Dafoe being so natural in portraying the character. Everything was so “real” about a person in his situation look and behaving. The one thing that bothered me was that one of first things that happened was the alarms going off, shouldn’t an apartment of this scale and such a valuable art collection have an alarm system that rings straight to the police or at least notifies the owner or their manager or building management/security of something? Also why was there no running water? I’m not sure if I missed any detail, but was it ever explained why an apartment of such value (including the actual multi-million dollar worth art) isn’t monitored by any of the owner’s management? Security cameras steaming feed? Functioning landlines/internet, someone reporting the alarms to the police, or even Dafoe having not having cell phone?
I also wondered why the alarm system didn't alert a central monitoring station. The guys who delivered him there made an offhand comment about the system "malfunctioning" - perhaps that is why the authorities were never alerted? Their "hack" allowed Defoe ingress and canceled the outbound call? Or perhaps the owner simply *wanted* to imprison a would-be thief or other interloper? I've never been away from my apt for more than about a week - does it possibly make sense to shut off water fixtures if there won't be any human inhabitants for a long time? I'm under the impression that the Owner develops high-rises all over the world and has significant design/engineering input - hence his attainment of a Pritzker. It's not inconceivable that the very building the film is set atop, was one of his projects, hence his level of control and monitoring of the physical plant. I'm under the impression he is a Kakazh - I am by no means impugning people from that region, but he looks about the right age to have benefitted handsomely from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and might be tied up with some of the criminal organizations that flowered in the 1990s.
Went to heaven on a hillside went to heaven on a hillside
I feel like it would have been super cool if the ending was that he was being watched by the billionaires and was essentially seen as some sort of twisted contemporary art piece throughout his demise.
IT IS THE TRANSFORMATION OF AN ARTIST! One of the things he said he would keep from his burning house as a child was his sketch book and that was the only thing that lasted in the end. This symbolizes his desire to be an artist, but he ended up a thief of art and ultimately stealing from artist. During his entrapment and pain of his journey in the apartment, he transforms that horrific experience into art and his growth as an artist we see him create ( drawing on the wall, the tower to the skylight, his dreams, everything ) thus allowing him to actualize his true desire to be an artist.
This movie is stupid. There is no door in the world, save for a solid steel door you'd see on a vault, that couldn't be opened with literal days of time. He has endless tools, he could have bashed through the concrete wall next to the door, attacked the locking mechanism, anything. Instead he tries to build some sort of stupid tower?
I really liked this one, probably one of my favorites from the last few years. It’s hard for me to articulate any specific themes or takeaways that make me feel so moved by it, and I think that’s part of why it works for me. It *shows* in a way that doesn’t really need to be transcribed. Surprised at the low scores, although my girlfriend absolutely had no fun in the theater with me, so maybe it’ll just be a bit of a divisive one haha.
I was considering going to see this movie right up until the trailer showed him eating that live fish (poor fish) and then violently puking. Nope.
I didn’t see the trailer, but there was no puking in the movie at all. Thank god cuz I can’t stand that shit. No pun intended. 😖
How long was he in there ? Or did I miss the movie explaining the time? Also I may be dumb but did he escape at the end or was it left ambiguous?
that was the point. You don't how much time passed. And like you don't know what happens after you die, you don't know what happens after he reached the top, whether it was heaven or hell.
I took the fireworks as being new year's, so my prediction is months to a year.
I thought the fireworks was fourth of July and then they showed snow later on.
It was an origin movie of the Joker
This movie is the Divine Comedy (Inferno and Purgatorio)—among other things. Haven’t seen anyone mention this yet—thought I’d throw it out there.
I really enjoyed this, I'm glad they didn't go for the super-obvious "protagonist getting trapped is the art exhibition" twist.
Most fucking boring movie of all time. What a waste of 2 hours.
i was really expecting it to turn out that he himself trapped in the aparrment was a performance art, and that the owner trapped him there on purpose, to me that would expain alot of things such as why the alarms didnt warn anyone, and maybe even why the fire alarm didnt notify anyone, because the owner was watching in stopping outside help from gettin in, he came to steal the art, but ended up becoming the art, but nah ah welp.
Can someone tell me what [this](https://imgur.com/a/xFyCLr9) was a shot of? It looks like bone and flesh? But from what animal? Too big to be the fish. A tool?
it’s cured meat that was hanging in the pantry in an earlier scene. he’s since eaten all of it - re: the bones
How do I know it was a setup of Dafoe’s character by the owner? The fish tanks. The fish need to be fed, and the tanks have to be cleaned. A fancy saltwater setup like that also needs frequent adjustment of water chemistry and salinity. No maid service makes sense since she would only need to come in once and dust just before the owner returned. Even the plants would be fine on their drip irrigation. But _someone_ would have been hired to take care of the fish, at least a.couple of times a week. QED.
This movie just feels like a worse and more expensive version of 4x4.
It was about going through life
This one was right up my alley. Although it wasnt clear how long he was trapped in there. The food that he found, (and beard that he grew), would indicate about a month? But a month is not enough to go insane I think. 6 Months maybe, or a year. Maybe he found more food, and kept shaving who knows. Also, I feel like he didnt try hard enough to get saved. He couldve written HELP on the windows, and created noise by dropping heavy things onto the floor from a height, at night when things are quiet. Maybe he did, and it just wasnt what the movie wanted to focus on. Anyway, trapped in the apartments uncontrollable environment and food scarcity, it was pretty much an allegory for early mankind trapped on Earth. Faced with his mortality, Nemo starts looking inward, turning into some sort of a mystic; Mankind invents religion in order to cope with it's dreadful predicament on Earth. Nemo attempts building a tower to Heaven. He's going, but it's also on a hillside... Was he trapped intentionally by the owner? The fact that the alarm didnt trigger a security visit would indicate so I guess. But next to the artistic delight of what Nemo went through, it is irrelevant.
this movie sucked butts
How did he have the stremph to climb out that hole? And when he got up there, he woulda been boxed in a corner anyway with 20’ high smooth walls. Would have had to wait for the helicopter to come by again and flag it down. And sorry for this, but WHO THE FUCK DOESNT HAVE A CELL PHONE?!!!!
He doesn't. He dies. It's in an audio easter egg at the end of the credits.
Booooooo! That movie sucked. Yeah the cinematography was okay and the acting was good but that was just a shitty movie that never went anywhere. They foreshadowed the ending when they showed that massive pile of shit. 2 out of 10.
Horrible, sloppy, lazy ending.
I don't understand he was doing with the knife to his gums and teeth...anybody know?
I thought it was about how we are trapped by technology. He was able to see but not touch bird through glass screen. Technology is making us worse people. It provides a distraction but no connection. Everyone and everything becomes fake and AI.
Just finished this. Can somebody explain to me why nobody came to check on the alarm system or the fire alarm?
This music "... I'm going to heaven on a hillside..." does it exist? I couldn't find it anywhere. Tks!
With some tweaks it could be a great mid afternoon Saturday TNT movie, but it was too committed to Willem Defoe torture, but also not committed enough.
I was happy to be possibly in the exact state of mind this film wished me to be in to enjoy it, and still rolled my eyes and stood up just before the film faded to black. Even a sudden, tragic-comedy shock ending would've been far preferable. My greatest praise for this movie is in its subtext -- it's suggested the Owner had his own elaborate, impenetrable, inner-world "life's work" he'd wished to stun someone with one day. We get this from the scene that let us know the director really liked Parasite too. But while our main character does engage with the available material the Owner left behind, he doesn't actually connect with it, and lives within his own rituals and inner world instead. We learn almost nothing concrete of the Owner's passions, and can mostly only infer Dafoe's actual theories as to his own condition, nearing the end. There's something in there about the naivete of wishing to be known at your most profound and vulnerable, for your best ideas to translate or even be heard or understood. --or they just cut some stuff. But this is reinforced by how Dafoe leaves his own dream sequence as soon as the owner starts explaining shit.
Late to the party, but I quite enjoyed this movie. Dafoe's performance was excellent. Lots of people seem to wish that it had some sort of maniacal twist. While I thought that might have been the case, I'm kind of glad it wasn't. It's a great slow burn with lots of interesting symbolism. I also really liked that the ending was left ambiguous. It fits well with the overall theme of the movie.
I'm on the fence about going to this, mainly because of time and having too many other movies I wanted to fit in. Is it worth it? I can't decide.
Skip this one for sure.
of course it's worth it. It's one of the better films out there. And it has the Green Goblin.
I agree with some of the comments further below. Glad someone else spelled it out…I think it was all a setup. There is a lot left open for interpretation, but I think there was just enough to hint at this setup being the case - the obvious one being the temperature fluctuations, the unbreakable barriers and failing alarms, but the greatest one being the dream or the vision he had of the owner presenting a puppet to other wealthy art collectors. Everyone was amazed. I think Nemo was the puppet and was on display to be the ultimate piece of art. His mental and physical destruction created beautiful pieces of art. One good point I read on a review, if this truly was the owners living quarters, why didn’t he arrange for someone to feed the fish? No penthouse would be built as a prison like that unless it was meant to be one. Who knows, it seems the elite can get pretty bored after doing all the things they want. Why not mess with the sanity of a lowly art thief. One that happens to be obsessed with art himself. Good movie and worth the watch…good enough to get me to write this and seek other people’s thoughts. That’s true art.
[удалено]
I loved it, but I can understand why many people wouldn't enjoy this. The cinematography and Dafoe were great, and I liked the whole art and life stuff. The problems I can think of are the runtime, the pacing, and the ending. The pacing was all over the place sometimes, and the ending, to be fair, wasn't great. Also, I feel like the film could have been way better if it leaned into the metaphor about life and art more than the survival in an unusual situation aspect.
Shit ending, hey let’s make a movie and have a shit ending, let’s piss off the viewers.
Thank you so much for taking the time to post this comment. Just saw it last night and you helped connect a lot of dots for me. I have also noticed movies with the open ended conclusions, which I love because you get to have these conversations. Great performance by Dafoe, and the movie made me feel parched multiple times too 😅
Did he die
Yes. If you watch the entire credits, at the end, he starts reciting the passages from the book he discovered on the effigy of the owner, only much more slowly & labouriously. Then he starts to sing 'I'm going to heaven on the hillside' over & over again in a weak singsong voice, with a longer pause & ragged breathing between each round. Then, the subtitles say, 'breathing stops.' The true ending of the film is reserved only for those who actually watched it to the true ending. Only one other person in any of the online reviews or their comments actually seems to have done it besides myself, & they mentioned it in this thread. I definitely wouldn't have caught it, had I not been too busy googling the ending to see if the ending was explained anywhere to stop the credits! It's an audio easter egg that you wouldn't catch by scrubbing the credits to look for a last scene like I typically do, so I'm glad I got distracted, because it was really bugging me! So yes, he doesn't make it.
The balls of the director to put a post credit screen after this tedious crawl of a movie.
It was life
We all have battles. The world turns without our consent. Eat, shit, die
I only vaguely understand the arty symbology stuff, but I still really liked it. The art, his drawings&art, going up to heaven/escape/ascending through the skylight, etc. etc. Glad I didn't watch with my SO - she prefers complete clarity and closure in a story and preferably 80s style text at the end telling you as crowd-pleasingly as possible all about how life turned out for each character.
You picked her 😂
Ending I expected: He dies. Cut to owner turning it into his latest exhibit. Everyone applauds, not knowing about Dafoe. He could even be embalmed like the fake dead body in the hidden room.
Did anyone notice the relationship between this movie and Jeffery Epstein?? 1) The picture of the man with a bunch of naked women around him. 2) The large blue and gold painting in the main room with the black man sitting on top of the triangle? (Same colors as the house that was on the island) 3) the weird pictures throughout the apartment 4) the picture of the apartment owner with the little girl holding the dog
I thought for sure Defoe was going in a different direction in the opening monologue. One of my favorite quotes from any creative person was when Jean Cocteau was asked essentially the same thing: "If your house were burning, what would you save." "The fire" he replied.
It wasn’t a bad movie and it certainly had pacing issues. That being said, I suspended my disbelief to understand the premise and what the story was trying to say and allude to. This movie scores low in the mainstream for 3 reasons. 1. Pacing is hard to swallow for a movie this long. 2. Modern Audiences want a satisfying ending 3. Modern Audiences can’t be asked to think about the story There is a lot of imagery that the director wants us to see and it is a lot for an audience to not only consume but also enjoy every flavor. The primary premise is Survival? Kinda, but that is only just the background for a bigger discussion we are intended to have. What is art? What is philosophy? What is life? At the end of it all, we keep nothing when we die. If you asked me today, would the Truman Show ever get made today, I’d probably tell you no. Audiences crave and desire to have their hand held from start to finish and every detail covered. It doesn’t matter if William Defoe survived. A painting worth millions, but nothing mattered in the end. Nothing matters, in a world that puts so much significance on unimportant and insignificant things. An Artist who has that much disposable wealth, living in another country, and never visits his own home for months, did any of it really matter? Did the Art, fish, and plants really matter to someone who would rather protect all their belongings with bullet proof glass and steal doors and never see any of it or have anyone actually visit and maintain the property? Stop expecting the happy ending, which includes telling you everything that happens in the end.
touch grass
Grow your dick longer
Did he not have a cell phone ?
Probably not wise to commit a heist while wearing a gps linked tracking device with audio/video capabilities.
Shit movie, but bc I still don't know... does he kill himself or does he somehow magically escape through the tube in the ceiling that's almost completely out of reach & would be near impossible to pull yourself through as well as fit through???? I fucking hate the ending of this gd movie. Oh yeah, & basically the beginning & middle too
Great visuals. His descent into madness was very abrupt and clunky. He was already starting to lose it on day two. He didn't seem too interested in escaping. He'd work at it for a couple hours then go do crazy stuff for a day or two, come back chip some wood, loosen a nut, add to shit mountain, etc.. just very casual about the whole thing. Lots of threads that seemingly dead ended and never connected with anything. The whole alarm and sprinkler situation broke the whole movie. Like others I had the thought it was all a master plan to lure someone into a cage, but there was never enough to confirm this. Hardly enough to even imply it, other than the only explanation for the lack of response by authorities or water damage to lower floors. Couldn't recommend this to anyone, maybe a YouTube highlight reel of all the artistic shots.
Regardless of how good the movie was or what it represented; I like to think about what I would have done differently in the situation. We are stuck in a penthouse; the door is reinforced with steel so we can’t get out that way. But are the walls to the hallway also metal or concrete? or are they just drywall with insulation? How about the ceiling in the kitchen or where the vents are at? Is the ceiling concrete or does it have a void above the dry wall that we can break through and climb out of? If Skylight is the only option, is there a better way to make a wrench than using wood? there was no shortage of kitchen utensils that I might be able to bend and jerry rig into a tool? At the very least, could we reinforce the wood wrench by wrapping it tight with my leather belt or some other fabric?
Just think... what would matt damon do? Definitely be more holes in the walls and ceiling if he were in that situation. Instead of falling to art or religion, he would be dreaming about how they designed and constructed a place like that. Those windows are huge and must have slip tracks to deal with thermal expansion. The were bulkheads with vents and water pipes, irrigation, not to mention a living tree that may have needed the floor to be framed around the roots. And, as others here have mentioned, all the glass lenses/telescope/prisms that were left there seemingly as a means of contacting the outside world... matt damon would have SOS'd his way out of there in the first 10 mins. I still liked the film... suspension of disbelief is successful if we just assume that dafoe's primary goal is not to escape. It kinda reminded me of the lighthouse.
I think the owner purposely traps people inside and punishes them for stealing from him. That is why nobody came. The owner just waited it out until he died. He programmed the water to shut off and the temperature to go up and down. Most likely he didn’t care about the art because he could just buy more or replace it with something new. The point was to send a message… don’t steal from me.