Belgrade, World War II. Retired professor Predrag walks along the street and spots a resistance member being chased by Nazis. The resistance member boards a street car and puts a notebook in Predrag's pocket, before being arrested. Back in his house, Predrag realizes the notebook contains the names of secret resistance members, and those whose names are underlined will be arrested soon. His wife and his daughter Vera cannot agree what he should do. The wife of the killed resistance member enters the house and asks Predrag to give her the notebook. When the Gestapo shows up and searches for the entire house, Predrag hides the notebook in a baby carriage. Having found nothing, the Gestapo leaves, and Predrag gives the notebook to the wife of the resistance member who leaves the house.
Excellent war thriller-drama "The Eighth Door" is a surprisingly gripping 'kammerspiel' playing out only inside one location (the protagonist's house) 90% of the time, and a meditation on finding courage to do the right thing even when the threat of evil forces you to remain docile. The Croatian director Nikola Tanhofer directs the story in a very efficient way, displaying a sense for a movie language, using match cuts, flashbacks, unusual camera angles and pans to keep the viewers engaged, whereas the simply story about the protagonist Predrag who doesn't know what to do with the notebook containing names of the secret resistance members during the Nazi occupation is easily accessible. The theme is summed up in a great little dialogue where Vera, the daughter, says to Predrag: "In order to be the man you always wanted to be, you only missed that for what you have the opportunity to do now". Even though Predrag wants to remain neutral, like many people want to during crisis times, he has to make a choice eventually. It is remarkable how Tanhofer is able to create suspense through simple situations: for instance, in one of these, Predrag receives a phone call from an unknown man, claiming the be the arrested resistance member, and wants Predrag to bring him the notebook to the bridge in half an hour, but Predrag's wife rightfully concludes that the man is an impostor, since the said arrested resistance member would certainly not have the chance to make a phone call. The finale, where Predrag hid the notebook inside the baby carriage during the Gestapo search of his house, but the baby starts crying so the guard at the door browses through the carriage to find a toy to calm down the baby, reaches almost Hitchockian levels of suspense, but the ending feels somewhat abrupt and anticlimactic, somewhat reducing the high impression up to it.
Grade:+++
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