Find a way out, even if there is none: the essence of the film Iron Doors the meaning of the film and the ending, the plot, similar movies.
Country: Germany
Genre: thriller, detective
Year of production: 2010
Directed by: Stephen Manuel
Actors: Axel Wedekind, Rungano Nioni
tagline: “No food. No water. No way out” – “No food. No water. No exit”.
Awards and nominations: In 2011, the Fantasporto Film Festival (an annual international event in the field of film science fiction) presented Iron Doors with the Best Actor Award (Axel Wedekind).
Thriller “Iron Doors” directed by Steven Manuel received mixed reviews and reviews from critics and audiences, and also caused a lot of controversy. Its duration is only 80 minutes, and after watching the finale, there are more questions than answers. All this led to the emergence of different interpretations that explain the essence of the picture. We will try to understand the meaning of the film “Iron Doors” through a detailed analysis of its plot.
What is the movie about
The main character, a middle-aged man, comes to his senses from the fact that a fly is crawling over his face. The hidden meaning of his phrase – “It’s time to quit drinking” – makes it clear that he had heavily abused alcohol the day before. Turning his head, he sees a dead rat crawling with flies. Looking around, the man finds himself in a large empty room with no windows. Near one of the walls there is a large metal cabinet, a lock hangs on its doors. On the other wall is a round steel door, similar to those found in safes. Several round lamps are burning above the man’s head. There is no one else in the room and nothing.
Axel Wedekind is the lead actor. Frame from the film.
Looking at his watch, the man realizes that it is already morning and he will soon be late for work. He decides that he was the victim of a prank by a certain Fletcher and asks him to be released, but he is not answered. Looking at his mobile, he sees that there is no connection. In requests to release and threats to those who closed it, the man spends the whole day. He tries to break open the closet and the door, but fails to do so.
Waking up on the second day, the man sees that nothing happened during the night, the door is still closed. He is thirsty and, after some hesitation, has to drink his own urine. He then turns to the invisible captors again, asking if they are happy with his actions and asking to be released, but to no avail. In desperation, the man beats several times on the door, and then on the lamp. He then looks at the last one and notices that there is a key inside it.
Having broken the lamp, the man takes out the key and opens the closet. Inside, he discovers an autogen and a set of hand tools. First he tries a chisel on the door, but it doesn’t even scratch the metal. Then it occurs to him to hide in a closet and blow up the door with the help of cylinders and a burner, but after checking the strength of the doors of the future shelter and making sure that they are flimsy, he abandons the idea.
Further in the plot of the film “Iron Doors”, a man tries to open the door with a cutter, but the fire does not cause the slightest damage to the door. In desperation, he wreaks havoc, overturns and smashes the closet, and then, exhausted, sits down and wonders what else he can do with the tools he has. So he comes to the conclusion that he can only try to make a hole in the wall with a hammer and chisel.
Frame from the film.
A man spends a lot of time and effort on punching a hole. He cuts the rebar in the wall with an autogen. Meanwhile, hunger torments him more and more, so, after much thought, he eats several larvae, commenting on this with the phrase: “Well, at least without preservatives.”
Then he continues to work. He manages to make a hole and, expanding it, he gets out of prison and finds himself in another similar room with a steel door. Looking around, he discovers an overturned lamp, and next to it is a closed coffin.
Opening the coffin, the man finds inside a dark-skinned girl in national clothes. After touching her, he wakes her up and finds that she does not speak English. A frightened girl gets out through a hole in the wall into the room where he came from. The man lies down in the coffin and falls asleep.
The next (third in a row) day, the main character wakes up from the fact that the girl wakes him up and hands him a hammer and chisel. With gestures, she invites him to punch a new hole in the wall. Having chosen a wall with her, the man tries to get to work. He is exhausted and cannot hold the chisel and hammer by himself, so at first they work together, and then all the same alternately.
Rungano Nioni played the role of a girl in the film. Frame from the film.
The man tries to figure out how he ended up in this place, but realizes that he only remembers how he went to a bar and got behind the wheel. He is trying to understand who could close it here and does not find suitable candidates. As a result, the explanation that they are in some kind of alien zoo seems to be the only one that makes sense to him.
The girl is also trying to understand how she got here. From the content of her monologue, it becomes known that she was supposed to be at the wedding and considers what happened to be a punishment for some kind of misconduct. She cries, so the man decides to cheer her up. He sings a song to her, the girl smiles, and then she sings something too.
The man injures his hand with a hammer, and the girl bandages it, tearing a piece of cloth from her clothes. They continue to work: she strikes with a hammer, and he holds a chisel. Suddenly, they notice that the rotary mechanism that locks the door begins to rotate when the hammer hits the chisel, however, as soon as they rush to the exit, everything stops.
This is repeated several times. As a result, the man solves the meaning of the puzzle: he invites the girl to hit the chisel, but not turn around to the door. The door opens. Without turning back, they back away from her, push her, and get out into another room with a steel door.
Iron Doors Ending explanation
At the end of the film “Iron Doors” in the new room there is an empty grave with a headstone next to it. The man decides that he needs to dig in the hole, while the girl offers to repeat the actions with which they opened the door in the previous room. They try, but their plan fails. They try to dig, but there is practically no strength. The exhausted man thinks for a split second about being tested and forced to eat the girl, but pushes the thought aside and yells at his captors that he won’t do it. Then he begins to fall asleep, and the girl with great difficulty pulls him out of the pit.
To bring a man to his senses, the girl seduces him. They make love and then fall asleep. The man comes first. He goes to the coffin, tears off a piece of the inner fabric and covers the girl. Then he lies down next to him and loses consciousness.
The door opens. The man comes himself and wakes up the girl, and then tells her not to look and go to the door. Stepping back, with difficulty, the heroes get to her, push and go outside. They find themselves in an amazingly beautiful place with trees, waterfalls and bright sun.
According to most interpretations, the meaning of Iron Doors ending is that the characters died and went to Heaven.
The meaning of the film Iron Doors
The essence of Iron Doors is to show that you always have to go all the way, no matter what the circumstances. Using the protagonist as an example, the director demonstrates how a man fights for his life in the most difficult conditions, in a confined space without food and water, cheering himself up with jokes and not losing heart.
The thriller itself leaves a lot of questions that we don’t get an answer to. We do not know how and why the heroes were trapped, and who placed them there. All we know about the man is that he was at the bar the day before and doesn’t remember anything else. The girl was supposed to be at the wedding. There is practically no other information about the heroes.
Frame from the film.
One of the interpretations of the meaning of the film “Iron Doors” says that the main characters have died and are in Purgatory. This is hinted at by coffins and a dug grave. It depends on the further actions of the captives where they get out of it. As a result, thanks to the struggle, mutual assistance and benevolent attitude towards each other, they managed to get out and ended up in Paradise.
Another interpretation of the thriller “Iron Doors” also suggests that the characters died, but not at the beginning, but at the end of the film, unable to get out of the rooms. Due to the fact that during their stay in the trap they did not harm each other (this, for example, is the hidden meaning of the episode where the man thinks that he is being tested and expected to eat the girl), but, on the contrary, they tried in every possible way to stick together and give each other all possible help, they end up in a better place.
The explanation for the ending is that they die, but as a reward for their perseverance, fortitude and desire to get out without harming their neighbor, the last door still opens to let them into Paradise.
The thriller “Iron Doors” is able to appeal to fans of the films “Cube”, “Saw” and similar ones, where a person is trapped in a trap and must get out of there. At the same time, it leaves too many unanswered questions. Each viewer has the right to find meaning in the many details that abound in the picture and answer what certain scenes mean, for example, why the girl is in the room with the coffin or why the characters in the third room discover the grave.
Perhaps all this should really suggest that the characters are already dead and it depends on their actions where they will end up from Purgatory. At the same time, other versions describing what happened, which everyone can come up with after viewing the picture, have the right to exist.
Frame from the film.
Similar films
- “Cube” (Canada, 1997). A group of people find themselves in a strange cube-shaped room, where each face is a hatch to another room. Together they try to find a way out of this construction.
- “Saw: The Game of Survival” (USA, 2004). Two strangers are chained to the walls in the basement. The kidnapper offers them a choice: kill a brother in misfortune or let their family perish.
- “Buried Alive” (Spain, UK, France, USA, 2010). The main character wakes up in a coffin. To stay alive, he needs to get out before the oxygen runs out.
- “127 hours” (UK, USA, France, 2010). The protagonist finds himself in a death trap in the mountains without food or drink. To survive, he needs to show character and find a solution to free himself.
- “Inside” (USA, 2023). A thief breaks into a luxury apartment to steal valuable paintings, but is locked inside when the door unlock code fails.
