Yu Tsukada | Bertille Rondard's "So Long Gropius"
Bertille Rondard's short animation "So Long Gropius" depicts the protagonist's emotions by intertwining the fictional world of a novel with reality.Summary
The short animation "So Long Gropius" (2024) by Bertille Rondard, a graduate of the prestigious French animation school La Poudrière, opens dramatically with the conclusion of an adventure novel the main character is reading, before immediately shifting to the real world. This meta-narrative structure highlights the character's lingering immersion in the fiction. In reality, the protagonist heads to a soccer match with friends, but she begins to project the character Gropius from the novel onto a small lizard she encounters, pursuing it. The film skillfully blends reality and fiction, using directorial techniques like dualizing camera positions and physical actions (such as a jump in the novel becoming a header in the soccer match) to illustrate how the protagonist objectifies the novel's ending through her imagination. Despite its tricky structure, the film employs an accessible visual style and sophisticated design that avoids feeling overly constructed by retaining certain bodily details, lending credibility to the protagonist's relatable struggles for adult viewers. Concluding its story effectively within its short runtime of about four minutes, the work embodies an ideal form of short animation.
(Source：artscape)