The day begins like any other for the suspender-wearing protagonist of Maël Gourmelen’s The Inspector and the Umbrella. That is, until he plucks his umbrella from its stand and realizes what should be an inanimate object has come alive with a particularly sassy sort of mischief.
Animator Gourmelen made this home-produced film over four years, from 2012 to 2016, and it was done the old-fashioned way: hand-drawn on paper. Appropriately, its goofy slapstick feels like a cartoon from an earlier era, though when something is this cleverly done, it’s really just timeless.
