Review of Fantasia (2004) by Noah Abraham G — 07 Sep 2012

As far as I can tell, no film is perfect. Every film (and really, every piece of art) has its flaws, some major, some minor. If I ever see a film that has nothing wrong with it, it'll probably be only because the film never took any risks. So why should the fact that some of Fantasia's scenes aren't as good as the others prevent the film from getting a 100% rating?

The film is, at its core, a series of animated shorts set to various pieces of classical music. The idea is simple, but beautiful, choosing some truly great works and setting it to some great animation. While some scenes may not be as good as the others, no scene is truly bad.

"Fantasia" serves as both a wonderful celebration of music and animation. The most famous sequence is Dukas's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", which stars Mickey Mouse in the title role, as a young pupil trying to shirk off his duties by using magic. The scene is quite good, although I don't personally find it to be the film's standout scene.

The best scene, to me, is Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." Maybe it's my bias towards that score, but the scene is simple and beautiful, featuring pictures of a fantasy woodland set to some of the work's most famous dances, including the perfect match of "The Arabian Dance" with a goldfish swimming in a stream and a hilarious rendition of "The Chinese Dance" complete with sentient mushrooms. Other great scenes are the surrealist animation set to Bach's "Toccata and Fugue" and the film's epic finale, as the demon Chernabog lets his minions play to Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain.".

A weird (but entertaining) scene happens during the Intermission, when our host Deems Taylor introduces the audience to a sentient soundtrack, represented by a white line. Preceded by a bit of jazz, the Intermission is an unfairly overlooked part of Fantasia.

The remainder of the film's segments are not quite as good, mainly because they're not as memorable. Sure, dinosaurs are cool, but Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" has little else going for it. It's not particularly interesting to look at, and contains probably some of the film's ugliest animation, just a muddy series of reds and browns. It also doesn't help that it comes after "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"; it's depressing tone feels out of place in the film at this point, and probably should have been placed after the Intermission, preferably before "Night on Bald Mountain.".

In contrast, Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" and Ponchielli's "The Dance of the Hours" suffer from being focused mainly on broad comedy. For a film that takes itself so seriously, these two sequences feel very out of place. Even "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" had its serious moments, coupled with muted colors and impressive animation. These segments feel cartoonish, and without any real serious moments to balance them out, they aren't as welcome as "The Chinese Dance.".

All in all, however, the film does work, and neither the animation or music become terrible. If you haven't seen it, you should. If you have seen it, you should watch it again.