René Laloux © Dreamland éditeur, 1996

What emerges from all this is an intimate self-portrait of Laloux himself. It is shaped by the things he loves, hates or decides to ignore; by the things he sees in himself, or things that are alien to him; anti-Disney idiosyncrasies ("The studio's recent films show an even more pronounced graphic weakness") and an impassioned defense of scriptwriting ("It is difficult to be a real auteur, as very few filmmakers are really able to write an original and well-constructed script, direct actors, edit the film with a good rhythm, compose the right music. The low quality of many films should be blamed first of all on weak scripts and dialogue.") There are even paradoxes and provocations ("Will we be forced to rediscover silence, so we can really express ourselves again in this audiovisual world dominated by noise and void of words?"). And there is, of course (as Laloux being a visual artist who began his career as a painter), a very good selection of illustrations.

Ces dessins qui bougent will probably perplex young readers, or those who are not very knowledgeable about animation. It is far from being objective, accurate or scholarly. It even has its share of misspellings (for instance, Matt Kroening instead of Matt Groening). But it will certainly stimulate the reflections of all those who are still among the happy few. And his ultimate message is very optimistic and simple: animation, he notes, "is an art that you conjugate to the future time."

Giannalberto Bendazzi is a Milan-based film historian and critic whose own history of animation, Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation, was published in the US by Indiana University Press and in the UK by John Libbey. His other books on animation include Topoline e poi (1978), Due voite l'oceana (1983) and Il movimento creato (1993, with Guido Michelone).