Review: Fantasia

 

Featuring not so much plot as animated imagery meant to represent one’s imagination whilst listening to various pieces of classical music. For over two hours.

 

Scripted by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer (the writers of “Dumbo”) and directed by a whopping ten people, this 1940 Disney film is a favourite of many. To me as a 9 year-old it was a crushing bore, and seeing it once again at age 34 I’m happy to report that I was one astute little 9 year-old. I hated this movie then and I still hate it now, as I continue my current viewing of Disney animated films (I seem to be on a diet of mostly Disney and Woody Allen at the moment. Make of that what you will). There’s more identifiable and entertaining storytelling from the narration/set-up by Arthur Miller lookalike Deems Taylor than in the entire film of animation/music segments. He tells the stories, so why do we need to see it repeated far less enjoyably and far more pretentiously? And we get a 15 minute intermission? From what? This isn’t even a coherent movie. I’d be shocked if anyone fondly remembered this film from their childhood. It’s like the kind of animated movie Niles and Frasier Crane would dream up, except they’d give us much weightier, psychologically-motivated material.

 

It’s not that this isn’t clever, it’s just that there’s only 5-10 minutes worth of enjoyment in it, the rest is pretentious, shameless padding, and skull-fuckingly dull. It should have been a short film shown before “Pinocchio” (the pinnacle of Disney animated storytelling) or “Dumbo”. Instead it’s a 2 hour mix of Godfrey Reggio (“Koyaanisqatsi”) time-lapse borefest and acid-drenched Pink Floyd music video. It’s trying to be art. Just gimme a goddamn fun movie, OK Uncle Walt? I just wanted a movie, not an experiment featuring self-contained animated pieces set to classical music.

 

The music is much more interesting than the animation, because at least most of the music is well-known classical orchestrations. There’s some cute bits of animation like the Nutcracker Suite thing with a pre-Tinkerbell fairy, which was nice, and the cute widdle winged horsies. The topless (but nipple-free) fauns and topless (with nipples!) demon chicks sure were an unexpected sight in a family film, too. Unfortunately the latter segment proves too much of a good thing, going on for way too long. Meanwhile, the dinosaur segment would’ve made for a far more interesting film. Instead of a film where the music takes precedence over animated storytelling, why not make a whole film about the early days on planet Earth, merely accompanied by music? You could even call it “Ice Age”.

 

Everyone remembers Mickey Mouse in the ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ segment, but in my opinion, it’s just as bad as most of the other sketches, though at least it kinda had a story (and the story came before the music, unlike the rest of the film). And what a dreadfully boring, downbeat dirge of an ending the film has, set to the interminable ‘Ave Maria’.

 

Who the hell is this aimed at? People with their heads up their own arses, most likely. I can appreciate both animation and classical music, but who aside from the snootiest elements of society would want to sit through a two hour mixture of both? It ends up being far too much repetition of the same basic concept and belongs on screen at a classical music concert, it’s useless as cinema. I’m a champion of narrative storytelling and cinema. This is favouring animation in mere servitude to the music, with the scarcest attention paid to storytelling. It’s not a movie, and it’s not entertaining. I think Looney Tunes lampooned this hilariously with the whole Elmer Fudd/Bugs Bunny ‘Kill the Wabbit’ operetta to be honest.

 

The directors of the film were; James Algar (who started as an animator for Disney), Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe (who mostly directed serials and jungle adventures), Norman Ferguson (“The Three Caballeros”), Jim Handley (another animator), T. Hee (probably a pseudonym for Disney himself), Wilfred Jackson (“Alice in Wonderland”, “Peter Pan”), Hamilton Luske (“Pinocchio”, “Peter Pan”), Bill Roberts (“The Three Caballeros”) & Paul Satterfield. In my opinion, one of Disney’s worst-ever films, to others, a masterpiece.

 

Rating: D