Just finished watching this one. It was great! It reminded me very much of David Lynch at times. I'm not sure I really understand it completely but it was enjoyable, entertaining and very well made.
Not sure what is the real reality, if there even was one. Gambir killed his folks when he was 8 and the whole movie was created in his head with the people working at the mental hospital cast in his fantasy? That seems the obvious answer but what's up with the church scene? And the scene after the credits? And why does he say 'You failed to save us one more time'? What is the significance of the forbidden door? Also, the numbers on the door of the woman's office at the Herosase building are apparently of some significance. Much to think about...
Yeah, I'm not certain I fully understood everything either.
I think the 'you failed to save us again' line suggests that he had repressed the memory of his childhood and was living/existing in his head as if it had never happened. Yet he still 'unrepressed' the memory so to speak, by looking behind the door he'd erected in his own mind to protect himself. The word again means that he has probably done this several times before. I guess his child self is suggesting that if only he could resist trying to find out certain things, it would be as if none of his childhood had ever happened and he could be a happy, successful artist with a best friend and a loving wife. Instead he continually ventures to the part of his mind that he should avoid.
Throughout the film there are those billboards that say things like 'welcome to happy land' or something like that. I wasn't sure of the significance of them at first, but obviously they were put there by his subconscious to keep him from feeling negative and therefore believing that his mother was domineering, his wife was unfaithful and people secretly watch child abuse and snuff movies.
My thoughts on the ending are that him working as a priest is a new world he's created in his head after the previous one fell apart. Rather than aceept reality he has instead just made up a new one in his mind. I'm not sure why it showed the reporter on the phone, perhaps just as a final confirmation that the world in which he's in prison is the real one. The fact that 'help me' is written on the wall is a puzzler though.
I think the end scene after the credits might have been where he had written help me as a young child, before he had murdered his parents.... It was simply still on the building since that time. Maybe that is why he incorporated that building into his delusion.