A Visit from Space
1964 · 11m · Croatia
Directed by Zlatko Grgić
Genres: animation, family, sci-fi
A charming 1960s Zagreb Film animated short: a little girl picking apples befriends a lost little alien from space.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A girl meets an alien and they pick apples together—it's *almost* a children's book illustration come to life, which is exactly why it shouldn't work, and yet Grgić's refusal to sentimentalize either character makes the tenderness feel earned rather than prepackaged.
Grgić's Zagreb School animation sits in a precise lineage between Trnka's puppet work and the psychological depth animation was beginning to explore in the early '60s; the restraint in the character design and the almost melancholic pacing of the apple-picking sequence announce a formal sophistication that still reads as quietly radical.
The genius move here is the alien's design itself—simplified to near-abstraction, almost a geometric doodle—which lets the girl's modest, naturalistic performance become the film's emotional anchor, making the whole thing hinge on a single human face against a deliberately flat space.
Reviews
The animation team led by Ante Zaninovic use an interesting style - the backgrounds - the apple tree, the church, Maria's house - are drawn in white chalk on a blue or red solid background while the foreground images - Maria, the apples, the spaceship, the kite, etc - are drawn in a different style with bright full-colour fill. It is very effective.