Willem Dafoe likes to take extreme directions when choosing his roles. Just looking back over the years reveals several performances where he teetered on the brink of insanity, from The Lighthouse to Siberia to The Card Counter. Even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe he could menace of his Green Goblin from the old Spider-Man movies.
After taking on three versions of the friendly neighborhood spider (Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire) on the Statue of Liberty, he’s now his biggest opponent so far opposite: a luxury apartment in New York. In Inside, which premiered at the Berlinale on Monday, Dafoe is locked in a cold prison from which there is no escape.
After the big Marvel crossover, Willem Dafoe finds himself fighting a luxury apartment
Dafoe knows all about the larger-than-life structures that grace the Manhattan skyline. Last but not least, his Marvel character, Norman Osborn aka Green Goblin, owns one of the most magnificent properties and can overlook the entire metropolis. Inside also begins with images that show us the majestic urban canyons of New York. However, claustrophobia soon takes over.
You can watch the trailer for Inside here:
Inside – Trailer (German) HD
Dafoe takes on the role of art thief Nemo. The name says it all: We don’t find out where he comes from and for whom he works. He’s a nobody who gets dropped from a helicopter in the dark and uses a Mission: Impossible maneuver to gain access to the penthouse. Five paintings by Egon Schiele should he steal Everything goes according to plan, but then there is no trace of the last work of art.
The experienced grips of the pro become more nervous. Before he knows it, the apartment’s high-security system kicks in and the man on the other side of his radio deserts him. Closed windows, closed doors: Nemo is imprisoned, trapped in a impregnable concrete fortress over the city. Even the blaring alarm cannot be heard outside the thick walls.
When the art gallery becomes a death trap: Willem Dafoe suffers in Inside at the Berlinale
Inside is a chamber play that, with the exception of a few introductory shots, takes place exclusively inside the huge apartment. Director Vasilis Katsoupis stages this apartment like a labyrinth with different levels. Just like Dafoe, we as viewers only gradually find them rules of this place out, which, contrary to the beauty exhibited by the artworks, turns into a death trap.
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Inside
The heating takes care of itself, there is no running water and since the owner has been away for a long time, the contents of the fridge also leave a lot to be desired. What follows is a struggle for survival that quite a bit of inventiveness demanded of its protagonist if he wants to leave the building alive one day. Even the prospect of being handcuffed suddenly seems appealing.
But Nemo can scream as loud as he wants. Even the young woman who cleans the hallway and stairwell walks past the mighty apartment door several times without even having the slightest idea what hell is breaking loose inside. After a few days of sweating and starving, Nemo begins to disassemble his prison – hoping to reach a slit that will allow him to escape.
Berlinale highlight Inside: In order to create something new, the old must be destroyed
He wants to look behind the facade, penetrate the surface and find out more about the building, which mutates silently into his ultimate boss. With every screw that he can loosen using the greatest of force, he only hits another massive surface, the hopelessness and despair fuel. The targeted conquest of space turns into a haphazard dive into the abyss.
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Inside
Willem Dafoe lets us experience all stages of physical and emotional decay. If we initially think about Nemo in terms of a burglar who has done something wrong or right, in the end there is an emaciated person with deep bags under his eyes who is standing in front of us on his reached the existential limit is. It is questionable whether he saves himself with his decisions or only destroys them further.
It is precisely this destruction that Inside is most interested in. Ben Hopkins’ screenplay uses the genre framework to encourage discussion about Meaning and creation of art to toast Nemo is surrounded by gigantic paintings that completely overshadow him as a human. Helpless and powerless they let him work. While the (ideas of) the pictures stand the test of time, Nemo falls into oblivion.
Yet he struggles to leave his footprint, even if his story ends in this desolate place. “Maybe had to [dieser Ort] be destroyed”Nemo muses when he gets his create space in the world. “Because without destruction there is no creation.” The only thing he can’t destroy is the Macarena song, which also appears in Inside at the most unlikely moments.
Inside starts on March 16, 2023 in German cinemas.
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