“Things never got so bleak that I took up a hobby.”
This sums up the world of Little Doors. The country is in a kind of ‘soft apocalypse’ where the big city may be on fire, and things are likely coming to the end of society, just very slowly. There is still time to have too much free time.
A woman squatting in a large, unfurnished house (a lamp, a radio, a plastic patio chair, and a lot of hardwood and windows) on the far edge of the city, scavenges about the empty streets. Somehow, she manages to hire a locksmith to open some of the extra rooms that the previous owner locked before they left, not that she really needs them. Shy, but curious about this woman, and possibly digging that they have the same taste in blue coveralls, the locksmith not only opens the place up, but moves in.
He takes up smoking so he can have smoke breaks with her, to break up the day. She seems receptive, but struggles at expressing any such thing. She scavenges another, matching, plastic chair to add to the space. They listen to the radio drone on about the dying world as they make their own tiny one, in the nook of the great room.
A woman squatting in a large, unfurnished house (a lamp, a radio, a plastic patio chair, and a lot of hardwood and windows) on the far edge of the city, scavenges about the empty streets. Somehow, she manages to hire a locksmith to open some of the extra rooms that the previous owner locked before they left, not that she really needs them. Shy, but curious about this woman, and possibly digging that they have the same taste in blue coveralls, the locksmith not only opens the place up, but moves in.
He takes up smoking so he can have smoke breaks with her, to break up the day. She seems receptive, but struggles at expressing any such thing. She scavenges another, matching, plastic chair to add to the space. They listen to the radio drone on about the dying world as they make their own tiny one, in the nook of the great room.
This is the set-up, before the set-up, of Anthony Oberbeck’s austere, funny (but never absurd) meditation on coupling, communication, and the emotional rhythms over the life-cycle of a relationship. Deadpan as its humour may be at times, Little Doors is quite earnest, perhaps even serious (but hey, some things should not be said out loud) about what it takes to eventually enjoy a silence with another human.
Oberbeck specializes in oddball DIY comedy, often collaborating with director Graham Mason. I came to his work through the absurd parenting one-upmanship farce, Dad & Stepdad, and then again with their Reveries series of films, a lo-fi drug-hazed freestyle mix of silliness and profundity. Directing and starring in (and editing) Little Doors, Oberbeck has crafted something of an intimate portrait of alternate-existence with his wife, Megan Koester, playing opposite.
Oberbeck specializes in oddball DIY comedy, often collaborating with director Graham Mason. I came to his work through the absurd parenting one-upmanship farce, Dad & Stepdad, and then again with their Reveries series of films, a lo-fi drug-hazed freestyle mix of silliness and profundity. Directing and starring in (and editing) Little Doors, Oberbeck has crafted something of an intimate portrait of alternate-existence with his wife, Megan Koester, playing opposite.
Koester exudes a late-1990s Janeane Garofalo sort of energy, maybe a bit more hostile, maybe a bit more vulnerable. Both her and Oberbeck's attempts to bridge this divide through glances, brow furrows, and body language, are the heart of the film. Shots of these two are often cut with just an extra beat: On one hand, to slow down, lean in and enjoy their very specific mode of flirting. On the other, to underscore tentative attempts at trust, and build the private, unspoken language that couples develop over time. Sometimes synchronized smoking is enough.
The conflict (well beyond the background apocalypse, or any wandering denizens on the outside) which is the actual set-up of the film, comes into their world when the she wakes up one morning to find a tiny door on the side of her body. The still tender relationship is tested by this unknown. Dreadfully so, when something is knocking from the other side.
Power dynamics come into play around the decision on whether or not to open the door. It's less about “my body my choice,” and more about the effect that a stressor, particularly a medical one, has on a relationship; how one party can be needy, while the other holds the tools to relieve that need, but ego and or avoidance impulses can get in the way.
Depending on the moment, the amount of concern or the guilt, that ‘upper hand’ can flip back and forth between the two; just the fact that there is an upper hand can be the problem. The right relationships transcend this. The wrong ones implode under the tension.
At one point, this struggle is so vast, Koester needs to physically contort her face into the right emotions with her fingers in a kind of Japanses Butoh theatre performance in the mirror. Attempts to handle things on her own, for the sake of control (or dignity), push away her partner, instead of inviting him into the situation. This is what Little Door explores in both direct and indirect ways. It wants you to do the work, while it does the dance.
At one point, this struggle is so vast, Koester needs to physically contort her face into the right emotions with her fingers in a kind of Japanses Butoh theatre performance in the mirror. Attempts to handle things on her own, for the sake of control (or dignity), push away her partner, instead of inviting him into the situation. This is what Little Door explores in both direct and indirect ways. It wants you to do the work, while it does the dance.
Meanwhile, the mantra of the locksmith, “I have to go open a door,” hangs out there in the open. Does the tiny door make it more complicated than it has to be? That is perhaps the point. The way Little Doors unfolds, you want the pair to transcend whatever is behind that closed door. Even as the things do eventually veer into a kind of Eraserhead surrealism, the initial understated charm (and its potential harm) remain on display. And no hobbies are required.