Fantasia

(1940)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	Cinema

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Disney’s folly

Movie that reverses the cinema norm that music accompany images and, because of its oddness, revealing just why this is the norm.

The fact is you could never find pictures good enough to accompany some of the Western world’s greatest classical music - such pictures could only ever exist in the mind of the individual listener. Yet the fact that the music and images can never really fit one another, considered separately, both are equally excellent. The animation is technically superb and often amusing, frightening & moving; veering from the sublime to the ridiculous - and back - with well-studied alacrity.

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Yet, a film like Ken Russell’s The Music Lovers arranged the marriage of sound and picture with far greater artistry; indeed, all of the movies Russell made about classical composers did this sort of thing so much better than here.

Ultimately, the ending is rather weak since it makes use of Ave Maria and, unlike Aria, this film takes itself a little too seriously for its own good: Absurd, but fun.

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Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.