Trailer: Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room

Our big regret of Sundance 2015 was being too late for Evan Johnson and Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room (that’s what you get for attempting to eat meals during a film festival) – and since seeing the trailer for this esoteric soon to be cult masterpiece, that regret has only worsened. Here’s the official synopsis:

The four-man crew of a submarine is trapped underwater, running out of air. A classic scenario of claustrophobic suspense—at least until a hatch opens and out steps… a lumberjack? As this newcomer’s backstory unfolds (and unfolds and unfolds in over a dozen outlandish tales), Guy Maddin, cinema’s reigning master of feverish filmic fetishism, embarks on a phantasmagoric narrative adventure of stories within stories within dreams within flashbacks in a delirious globe-trotting mise en abyme the equal of any by the late Raúl Ruiz. Collaborating with poet John Ashbery and featuring sublime contributions from the likes of Jacques Nolot, Charlotte Rampling, Mathieu Amalric, legendary cult electro-pop duo Sparks, and not forgetting muses Louis Negin and Udo Kier, Maddin dives deeper than ever: only the lovechild of Josef von Sternberg and Jack Smith could be responsible for this insane magnum opus.


The trailer is an attack on all the senses and has our heads spinning, so we cannot wait to see the finished product. Our The People’s Movies colleague and Sundance companion Scott Clark reviewed The Forbidden Room over at his website, erm.. Forbidden Room, so you can check that out here.

Don’t expect this one to be hitting your local multiplex – so look out for festival dates and an On Demand release.