Rein Raamat 90

Giannalberto
Bendazzi
Eastern Europe and the
Roaring Seventies
During WWII, the Soviet Union and the United States were allies.
After beating the Nazis, the anti-communism of the Americans, the
anti-capitalism of the Soviets, and their shared imperialism divided
the world into two blocs that waged a war of attrition.
Eastern cinema officials were still patriots and only mildly thwarted
the innovations of the artists. The censors were short-sighted of
course. They had common preconceptions about animation: “Who
wants a short film?” “Animated drawings ... for children.” “The style
contrasts with Socialist Realism! But the film won grand prizes. We
gained prestige.”
It was in Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, where the new Eastern
European animation blossomed. In 1961, Dušan Vukotić’s “Surrogate”
won the first non-American Oscar for animation. It was a surreal
farce, with an innovative design, based on the idea that everything
is bogus. Pessimism with sarcasm was the stylistic cypher of
Vukotic’s colleagues, the so-called Zagreb School. Theirs was
existential, not political. In private, the authors all claimed to be
satisfied with their leaders and their system. The Poles, Hungarians,
Romanians, Czechs, Estonians, Georgians, Armenians, and
Bulgarians rapidly prospered in that furrow. They brought on formal,
thematic and technical innovations.
Films were often allegorical. The great Prague puppet animator
Jiří Trnka’s short film “The Hand”, tells the story of a potter whose
workshop is overtaken by a huge hand giving him oppressive orders.
The craftsman ends up dying, and the hand pays him solemn
funeral honors. “You criticized the hypocrisy and violence of polit-
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