The Door (2008) User Reviews

Well done.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 27 February 2010]

I am going to say something rather radical. Over the last several years, I've gone to the showings of both the animated and live-action short films that were Oscar nominated. For the first time ever, I went to a showing and didn't particularly like any of the films--as was the case with the live-action ones for 2010. I didn't think any of them were bad but i also didn't think any were Oscar-worthy--and most of them were amazingly unpleasant--like the Academy deliberately tried to pick the most unpleasant films they could this year. Perhaps 2008-9 was a poor year for live-action films or perhaps this just shows a bias of the people picking them. However, I can't see the public in general enjoying most of the films or wanting to see them.

"The Door" is a very, very somber film. Although made by an Irish film maker and crew, the film is set in Russia and re-tells the story of the Chernobyl disaster. The story centers on one family in particular and the death of their young child as a result of this radiation leak. It's well made but at the same time it didn't seem especially necessary, as everyone in the audience knows that dying from cancer is bad and the loss is so pointless. The acting and somber direction is good--but who, other than a very small group of people, would want to see this? Tragic and well done...but unpleasant.

A real feature short shot on the real location - envious...

[liftmanproductions · 7/10 · 13 July 2012]

I do understand the above, the somewhat not sufficiently motivated nature of it, if I took it right. A little too scarce that the single motive is that door. Only one core around which it all is threaded.

However I think it is a remarkable achievement to have been able to film at the very location (and all with extras, vehicles, etc), even if its sadly starting to be a cliché about Pripyat. Still I think it will never stop being a thrilling issue and location. I myself actually still have a desire to once be able to go there for some reason. Very convincing and decent production, acting, photography.

The strange thing is that there is another "The Door", of 2009, with Mads Mikkelsen, what oddly enough tells about "an artist who loses control of his life after his young daughter's death."

A tragedy through the eye of one man

[wumbi · 7/10 · 1 November 2021]

A silly act of stealing a door quickly turns into something much more. Masterfully crafted as every single images strikes deep within. Amazing use of color palette, making it much more gloomy and it adds another layer to the sadness that the characters are going through.

Touching and historically important

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 30 July 2016]

"The Door" is a 2008 short film from Ireland, so it will have its 10th anniversary two years from now. The language in here is Russian, however, and that has closely to do with the story. The film plays in the 1980s and a family is evacuated from their home. By now, everybody who isn't completely clueless about history should have understood that this one is about the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. It focuses on a man, his girlfriend/wife and their daughter. But tragedy strikes and destroys the idyll. The moment when the man discovers the mark on his daughter's skin was really very sad and I had to hold my breath. The story line with the door that is referenced early on too was solid, but did not do too much for me in terms of the tradition when it comes to dying family members. Other than that, it was a very sad, but very important film too and everybody who has more of a connection with the affected country than I do should really see it. I recommend the watch and it's deserving of the Oscar nomination I think.

Blatant Propaganda

[Theo Robertson · 4/10 · 8 March 2014]

After the nuclear disaster in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of 1986 a man goes back to his town on a quest to retrieve something knowing both the dangers from the state and the radioactive fall out

Okay I'll come out and say the most unfashionable thing I've ever written on this website - this is propaganda and like the worst propaganda it takes a sledgehammer approach to the emotions . You want to manipulate an audience then there's nothing more cheap and emotive than the death of child . Hey let's bring back hanging and only limit it to child murderers and paedophiles . Good idea ? Well the people revving up the outrage bus against this fascistic idea ( Their view that it's some how fascist and not mine ) would probably be the same people revving up the outrage bus against nuclear energy . The fact is global warming is man made and nearly every scientist on the planet all agree on this . I did once have an enlightening conversation with a professor who just happened to be head of geo-science of Edinburgh University , the same university who gave us Charles Darwin and a university that has been at the forefront of science for a couple of centuries . This professor did mention something interesting " The Chinese build a new coal fired power station every fortnight and they're not going to stop until all the coal runs out so there's nothing anyone can do about that " . A gloomy prediction but carbon dioxide is the major contributer to global warming along with deforestation . How can you come up with a power source for the expanding human population that is clean and doesn't contribute CO2 ? Nuclear power is the only way forward if you weigh up the alternatives

I don't deny that the Chernobyl was a very human tragedy and its cause was entirely human error . If this short is making a point about this human tragedy , of a losing a child fair enough , but I think it's going a little bit further than that and we're supposed to have our heart strings pulled if not yanked off completely . It's a competently made short film and you wouldn't believe for a second it's not made by Eastern Europeans but there's definitely an agenda here and it's easy to look up unbiased sources on the internet saying there no huge jumps in cancer rates in the aftermath of Chernobyl or the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011 . There was probably more human beings killed in the 1966 Aberfan disaster where a massive slag heap from coal mining caused the deaths of 144 people than every nuclear disaster in human history combined . An inconvenient truth indeed