#3 Fantasia

Title: Fantasia

Release Date: November 13th, 1940

Cast (if you call it a cast): Deems Taylor, Leopold Stokowski, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Walt Disney

Plot (if you call it a plot): Fantasia is an anthology of 7 (technically 8) animated avant-garde masterpieces accompanied by famed orchestra scores performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Review: This film is difficiult to review, both in writing the actual review and scoring it. I suppose the best way to write this is on a segment-by-segment basis. And as for scoring, after long debating, I've decided to ignore the fact that this is a no-dialogue movie and rate it like I'd rate any other movie-- by how much it entertained me.

So let's get to it. (It's hard to make this review not boring.) The film opens with host Deems Taylor describing that there will be three types of segments shown in Fantasia: those that tell a story, those that paint pictures with no definite plot, and those that are abstract in nature and are based around the fancies of the mind.

The first segment, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is of this third type, and as much as I appreciate avant-garde work, I was not too impressed. The color imagery was mildly amusing in some moments, but my interest was hardly held. Luckily, this segment was followed by the Nutcracker Suite, which was much, much better. Disney retained its cuteness with the mushroom sequence, which had to be my favorite part. (The little mushroom tries to stay in line with the bigger mushrooms; it's adorable. :)) Afterwards, Disney proved it had a way with plants, as both flower sequences and the leaf sequence were visually exciting.

And then came probably the most recognized segment of the film: The Sorcerer's Apprentice, staring everybody's favorite mouse. This is what a like to see-- it proves that music is most interesting when it tells a story, and that stories are most interesting when accompanied by music. Unfortunately, it was followed by probably the worst segment of the film: the Rite of Spring. This details the evolutionary history of Earth, along with the existence and extinction of dinosaurs. And talk about boring. The animation was muddy, and the music couldn't stimulate the doldrums of the dinosaurs' lives. It took a T-Rex attacking a stegosaurus to get me interested, but that didn't last long. Honestly, I'd rather watch the "Meet the Soundtrack" intersequence 100 times over than watch this one more time.

What follows next is better (though it's hard not to be). The Pastoral Symphony accompanies a story amongst mythological creatures and deities. I've always been interested in mythology, so I was easily entertained by this, but not much. The animation is probably best here. It's simpler, and the scenery is candy-like. A weird phenomenon seemed to occur during this segment though. The music was still there, but it now felt like background music. I felt that the music was there to fit the animation, and not vice versa. I thought that the whole point of Fantasia was to animate to the music; either way, Disney never needed to prove that they could be exceptional in music (though they didn't write the score).

The last two sequences keep with the "entertainment" level of the Pastoral Symphony. Two very interesting concepts are introduced here: animals representing the parts of the day, and evil coming into conflict with good (musically). The Night on Bald Mountain is frightening, and the Ave Maria is just beautiful. Definitely the best way to end this film.

Again, I couldn't take into account that this movie was a no-dialogue film. It wouldn't be fair. For what it was, it was sensational. However, I honestly wasn't entertained all that much. The most I can give this film is a...

Hakuna Matata (It Means 'No Worries!')