The Nose

"The Nose" 2016
Kyra Anastasia
Music: The 2nd Waltz by Shostakovich
Inspired by Nikolai Gogol's short story "The Nose"
Special thanks to Polina!!!
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This story has been recreated many times- in the form of animation, opera, tap-dance, etc. It is a fantastic thing how each person can read the same, relatively simple 30-page short story and imagine it differently. This was my interpretation of Gogol's The Nose. With only a month to plan and complete this animation, I had to think fast and use the easiest, fastest, (and laziest) method of animation in order to have a finished product by the due date for Russian Literature class. This is a story about loneliness, insecurity, and of course- absurdity.
It is not necessary to say that the escape of a man's nose is absurd. What is absurd is life itself- we trudge through our days, unsure of what to make of our existence. So, we create meaning and purpose in things that truly have no point. But these menial things and tasks carry weight to us, and therefore it is worth living in this wacky, cruel, absurd world. While ladies who are victims of leprosy have lost their flesh, friends, family, and homes are left to beg for coins in a church, a man of decent status spends weeks despairing over his nose, embarrassed to show his face to anyone. A detail of his appearance renders him out of shape and useless. There is no explanation to this phenomenon and the Major Kovalev is crushed. The barber Ivan and his wife are pretty astonished as well. When Kovalev wakes up with his nose in place, he rejoices, thankful for something the average person would never think for which of being thankful.
It is unclear whether this sequence of events actually took place, or if it was dreamed. This is expressed through calendar dates. In the beginning when he wakes up without a nose, the calendar above his bed reads March 25th. At the end, the same calendar reads April 7th. These are the dates mentioned in the actual short story. But then the second calendar switches back to March 25th, suggesting that the whole ordeal never even happened. The former theory suggests that it is indeed the world that is absurd, while the latter suggests that the world is fine and great, but it's the people that are messed up. So, depending on which date is notices (or doesn't notice) at the end of the animation, this can change the viewers perspective on the story itself.