This film is a beautiful ending for Ion Popescu Gopo's film career. Childish, indeed, but charming SF-fairy tale about two little girls getting lost in a fabulous world inside a TV. I remember I saw this film in 1989, when I was 7. TV was important for me those days, because it was the source for thousands of daydreams, i.e. films and cartoons (all of which I saw on video cassettes). Gopo could foresee the impact that television would soon have on young people, so from this point of view, his movie is in a league with Spielberg's "Poltergeist", only a fairy-tale version instead of a horror. Gopo died later in 1989, but before the Revolution broke in December. He never saw Romania turning against oppression and fighting for real freedom, but maybe he didn't need that. He was free in the first place, because he was an artist.
Review of Maria si Mirabella in Tranzistoria
