Captivity attained a share of notoriety this past spring for a gruesome promotional billboard in Los Angeles that pictured the abduction, torture and murder of a young woman. The MPAA, upset that the advertising campaign hadn’t been submitted for its approval, publically censured the billboard, which was removed. At the same time distributor Lionsgate washed its hands of the film, leaving it to production company After Dark Films to get it into theaters.

Somewhere along the way in Satoshi Kon’s mind-bendingly phantasmal feature-length anime Paprika, a character plaintively asks, “Is this reality, or still a dream?” By this point in the film it’s a good bet that most viewers won’t be sure, either. Indeed, they may have ceased even trying to work it out, probably a wise choice.

Having entered the screening of The Golden Door with no particular expectations or anticipation, it took me a little while to identify the feeling that it had produced in me by its midpoint. That feeling, by no means unknown but certainly rare, was one of privilege, arising from being given the opportunity to see a part of the world in a new, unexpected light.