Telling an Environmental Story: Door

"Door" is a 1986 USSR stop-motion animation directed by Nina Shorina, one of my personal favorite stop-motion artists. The animation features a myriad of characters, all tangled up in a situation where the door of the building in which they live, work, or just need to get into does not work, so they use all sorts of creative ways to enter the premises except for the front entrance. One example would be the gentleman who climbs up a drain pipe in order to reach his respective floor, but ultimately fails, adding to the whimsicality of the animation (along with the rest of the situations). The animation places an intense emphasis on the background, where the story revolves around it; how to get in or out of the building? Taking into consideration that the animation had been made in the USSR, a period of Russian communism, the visual composition of the animation is to mimic the urban reality of that time as well as the appearance of the streets and structures. The texture of the building is rough and coarse, with faded furbishings atop the bricks, adding to the element of realism along with the clothes of the characters. However, we never see the building in full as it is always portrayed from different angled shots which allude to the size of the structure, indirectly broadening the story of the animation with all the different situations on every floor. For example, during the scene where the bride is stuck atop a roof marble statue (5:10), the congregation on the bottom is trying to open the door to commence the wedding, both of which we are aware are happening at the same location only on a different elevation. So, in a way, there are several interconnected stories happening at the same time where the only mutual element is the question: "how to get in/out?", all perpetuated by the background. During the end of the animation, where the door is opened by the underdoggish boy (by using oil), the accent of lighting kicks in where there is darkness after the door still, but light on the windows, which insinuates that the door had NOT been open for a long while and people have always been using alternative methods to get in and out - this is strengthened by the scene where the gentleman closes the door after the boy tells him about it and proceeds on climbing the same pipe (9:43). All in all, the animation's intended audience was children (for at that time they could only make animations for that audience) and due to this it is mainly focused on telling an entertaining visual story that would amuse kids with the use of a background being supported by characters. In other words, the story is about the building, where the characters just create the story. Truly a masterpiece of an environmental story.

"Door" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJIoSmmxljY&feature=youtu.be