Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

bruwhi I admire the film making and the art direction for The Forbidden Room, but while it initially dazzles, it quickly becomes rather tedious. There is no real payoff for the effort it takes to sit through it, and it does take some effort. The most entertaining part for me is the opening titles. The only movie I can compare it to is Stalker, and it isn't a fair comparison. While both share the washed-out, sepia tone Lynch-like visual style, Stalker has a discernible plot beyond just its style. I'd love to intellectualize the film and say it has deeper meaning, but outside of the art direction and distressed film look, after sitting through it I've decided there is just no "there" there.

vintagebrummie I was completely blown away by all of it. From the dazzling aesthetics, to how bizarre it was, and strangely of all, to just how hilarious it was. "The Forbidden Room" is simply a groundbreaking piece of work that unfortunately a lot of people will lose patience with - perhaps due to its two hour + running time, its non-linear narrative or maybe people wont find its sense of humour funny.Nonetheless, I found myself entranced by the whole thing. Part silent film, full surreal film, it's definitely made me want to check out Guy Maddin's previous work, and this could just be the best comedy film of the decade so far - putting it above my favourites: "The Lobster", "Submarine" & "Moonrise Kingdom".All in all, if you like art-house or unconventional films and have a bit of patience, I'm sure you'll love this one.

David Eastman On the face of it, this silly story within story romp through Saturday morning films of a previous generation should be ignored.It is not a pastiche - and the strange punk lurid dream style is both art and annoyance. But the style is to no useful end. And to force an audience to revisit bad early American cinema 'somewhere between Berlin and Bogotá' for 2 hours, with gentle mocking of early 20th century sexual strictures, is quite unfair.It plays out as being more appropriate for a repeating segment in a high concept sketch show than a cinema production. A short experiment of 15 minutes maybe. But to inflict real people to this at full film length seems strangely tragic.

JvH48 Saw this at the IMAGINE film festival 2015 in Amsterdam. Walked out after one hour, nearly half of the 130 minutes running time. I did not understand a thing about what it was all about from the outset, but I allowed it some slack due to the overly positive introductory talk by the festival's artistic director. He told us about the abundance of references to films from the silent period (I don't think I care). The format is blatantly weird in taking trouble to look like a film from the silent period, with seemingly missing pieces and imperfect material, though we know that this film is recently made, as such leading to the conclusion that these imperfections are added as a gimmick and defeating any useful purpose. It may resonate with film professionals, however, but what do I know.There is no edible story (actually five stories I've heard or read somewhere, craft-fully intertwined). I could not derive anything in common that could have served as a binding theme. It may be so that the binding element(s) were to be revealed later on, but I did not wait until the final revelation, and left. Anyway, other festival visitors who sat it out until the very end, did not make much of it either, as it scored a lowly 36th (out of 45) place for the audience award with average score 6.78 (out of 10).