Review of Fantasia (2004) by Shane S — 05 Sep 2011

It's like taking an entire sheet of acid while listening to your parents' classical music collection. On vinyl. And the orchestra is phasing a lot. Then again, it could be the 5.1 surround mix playing through my earbuds. I dunno.

So, in 1940, Walt Disney, hot on the heels of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"'s success, decided to make a purely adult animated film. You know, not one that tries to load itself with purely adult themes in order to pander to an adult audience (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, RALPH BAKSHI), but something that really isn't going to attract the attention spans of kids. Taking a cue from an in-progress Silly Symphony of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Walt and his crack team of animators hired Leopold Stokowski to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra and began experimenting with trying to animate music in its purest form. Rather than simply interpreting what the music was originally written for, the animators were given free reign on what to do, so instead of seeing tribes men in darkest Africa dancing to the works of Igor Stravinsky, we see Earth's formation by pure evolution.

This release was hyped up to be Disney's breakthrough into the mainstream. Hell, Disney and Stokowski practically invented surround sound in order to make this film much more powerful (not to mention more real). The sad thing: nobody got it. Save for a few critics at the time who appreciated this sort of thing, most of them wanted more kids' films from Disney, hence we have something called an "animation age ghetto" - where adult animations are ignored in a world that mainly thinks that drawing is simply child's play. You know, because all adults totally watch "Citizen Kane" all the time. And children prefer the early, darker features from Disney. Yeah, it doesn't make sense when I say it out loud.

However, people got it...in the late '60s. It took an entire renaissance of filmmaking, assurance that films were art and not just an all-ages commodity (I still don't get why kids would want to see "Citizen Kane"), and the overall liberalization of Hollywood (for the better, unlike what Ray Comfort says) for people to realize that this wasn't just Disney being a pretentious idiot. He was being an artist - an artist of the highest order. Well, his animators, but you know where I'm coming from.

Anyhoo, the animation is superb on this film. I mean, it is superb. Yeah, some of it is grainy - what do you expect malk this film was released in the '40s - but for the most part, it still feels fresh. It has structure. It has soul. It's not some half-assed Bob Clampett throwback John K. can throw out nor is it a dialogue-heavy film of modern times. Nah - this takes the idea of the classic Silly Symphony and makes it a little edgier. Well, a lot edgier, considering that you see bare breasts in this film. In one case, with nipples! And people say that this is totally a family-friendly film - because it is. Non-sexual nudity isn't going to harm your kids in any way.

And the music? Amazing. It takes me back to that old mantra - why don't people do this anymore? Why don't they take risks and actually create an alternate interpretation of whatever you hear? Oh, wait - because people don't have inspiration anymore. Well, they do, but that's in fringe communities. And not all people appreciate fringe communities. Stupid hipsters ruining everything...where was I? Oh, yeah - music. Leopold Stokowski knows his stuff. Dude conducts like a boss. And I like the idea of showing the orchestra in silhouette - taking our eyes away from the performers and towards the music they're making. It does have the idea of depersonalizing the orchestra, but in this case, that works to the film's advantage.

My favorite sequences would either have to be "Pastoral Symphony" or "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." One's a ethereal and idyllic look into ancient Greek mythology as topless centaurs roam around (yeah, I watched the cropped version, where Sunflower is practically retconned out - yay for civil rights), cupids fly around and play matchmaker, and Zeus has fun ruining their peaceful life. The other is a comic tale of how a sorcerer's apprentice royally screws up when he tries to use his (lack of) magic skills to anthropomorphize a broom into carrying water for him - and the results afterwards. One's a tale of how the real world runs - calmness, then hardships, then another peaceful calmness - and the other is a look at (to me) how you shouldn't cheat at music in order to create a masterpiece.

Do I recommend this film? If you're patient enough to like animation that exists to strengthen the idea of surrealism, then yeah - go for it. If you're a kid, I say watch "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" - you probably rented the film because Mickey's on the cover, doing his sorcerer shtick. If you're not into animation, I say be wary. You might not fully appreciate the work that Disney and his artists are doing with the medium.

If you're Jack Chick, nope. This film goes against every one of your ideals and it shows a world that happens to be realer than yours. No, really. Even from a Christian standpoint, this film is pretty real. I can't imagine all the things he'll say about this - DISNEY SELLS SMUT TO LITTLE CHILDREN.

...and it wasn't meant for kids in the first place...