Ink And Reason

When I was a kid, in communist Romania, I had the chance to watch cartoons only on Sundays, for about an hour, or during our summer vacations at the Black Sea, in summer open cinemas. Usually there were Looney Tunes or Romanian cartoons, produced by Animafilm studious. Surprisingly, considering the difficult realities of living in one of the most oppressive communist regimes of the time, these Romanian productions were very good. One of my favorite animators was Gopo. I loved his main character, with which he won a lot of international recognition, The Little Man.

Today, I want to present you this character in Allo Allo, a 1962 animated short film by Ion Popescu-Gopo, one of the most influential and original Romanian filmmakers of all time. Watch the story, style, and message of this charming cartoon.

Allo Allo is an example of Gopo’s genius and originality. It tells the story of a lonely man who tries to communicate with the world through a telephone but only gets frustrated and disappointed by the responses he receives. The film is a satire of modern society and its alienation, as well as a tribute to the power of imagination and creativity.

Gopo was born in Bucharest in 1923 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He started his career as a caricaturist and illustrator, before joining the Cinematographic Studio Bucharest in 1949. He soon became the founder and leader of the animation department, which later became the independent studio Animafilm.

Gopo’s animation style was simple, elegant, and expressive. He used black and white drawings, with minimal details and geometric shapes, to create characters and worlds full of humor, emotion, and symbolism. He often tackled themes such as history, culture, identity, and humanity, with a playful and poetic approach.

One of his most famous creations was the Little Man, a bald and naked humanoid who appeared in many of his films as a symbol of the common people and their struggles. The Little Man starred in Gopo’s most acclaimed film, A Brief History, which won the Palme d’Or for best short film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957.

Gopo died in 1989, just before the Romanian Revolution, leaving behind a rich and diverse filmography that includes feature films, documentaries, and TV series, as well as animation. He is widely regarded as the father of Romanian animation and one of the most important figures in the history of Romanian cinema.

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