Alma (2009)

I really liked the opening scenes of this short animation as the snow falls on the rooftops of a small town. Then we meet the joyful "Alma" as she playfully skips through the streets before alighting outside a shop window where there is a doll that could be her own spitting image. Indeed there are few in this shop, but the door is locked. Or is it? Once she has gone in, though, you start to feel just a little nervous, like something sinister is about to happen... Just who exactly are all these dolls? The quality of the production here is impressive and the characterisations not just of "Alma" but of the boy on the wind-up bike - who rather gave the game away for me, also work quite eerily well as this takes the ideal of toys as playful and benevolent and turns it on it's head.