High Movie Review #003: Fantasia

Fantasia was released in 1940. It’s not really like any other movie [except Fantasia 2000]. But like, for sixty years, there was no other movie like this. It’s like a concert of sound, of sight, and of imagination. It’s pleasure for the ears, the eyes, and the mind. 

It starts with the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which was composed by Johann Sebastian Bach for the organ, but in this movie it’s arranged for the orchestra. At first we see the musicians, and looking back, it would’ve been better for them to just start animation right away. I guess they were trying to like slowly lead the audience into the idea of a Fantasia movie, and they thought that jumping straight into just animation and music may have been a bit jarring, and showing the band play would indicate that this movie is going to be kind of a concert. I get it, but they should’ve just done all animation, the whole time. I’d actually prefer to watch this movie with just section after section, with no introductions or fillers. But that’s not the way it is. There’s little monologues between sections. Eh. Just get rid of those.

Then we go into the Nutcracker music. And I like the Nutcracker music. The art is beautiful, and each subsection has its own feel, there’s fairies and leaves and mushrooms and fish. Beautiful. They say Tchaikovsky hated his own Nutcracker music.. what a moron! It’s great music! I’m smarter than him!

After that is the section that has the most story: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, starring Mickey Mouse. You know Mickey Mouse, don’t you? The ruler of Earth’s media machine. The tyrant who commodifies happiness, squeezing every bit of nostalgia out of you. No longer concerned with creating artistic masterpieces, they simply rehash old ideas to be consumed by the masses. They pump out movie after movie from the franchises they’ve bought, raking in billions. This scene is so much fun. Mickey gets arrogant with his magician’s skills and tries to take a shortcut, enchanting the brooms to do his hard work, so he can relax in luxury. But it backfires. There’s a certain magical flair to this scene, with Mickey making the stars shine in the sky and the waves crash into the mountain. 

Like many of the early Disney movies, Fantasia is racist. It’s not racist throughout the entirety of its runtime, but there is a disgustingly racist scene, which has been removed from the movie in re-releases. I think that’s a good decision. I mean, I’m just a white guy, so I’m not the person to make those kinds of decisions. But, you know, it’s a movie that existed, and it had a very racist caricature of a black person in it, and it’s important to recognize racism’s impact and influence in the history of cinema, such that we can work towards a better present and future in film. And perhaps with Fantasia it’s best to acknowledge it, decry it, then remove that particular scene and keep re-releasing the movie. It’s a short scene, it’s easy to remove, and the rest is a great movie, and you know, maybe a black kid would watch this movie and love it, and start to get interested in animation or art or classical music. It’d be a shame to remove that possibility altogether. Probably good to approach it as a case-by-case thing. Like, it’s probably a good idea to not re-release Song of the South at all. 

Anyway, the Beethoven/Greek mythology scene makes me feel like I’m a beautiful creature with clear skin and no joint pain. I’m frolicking around joyously without a care in the world. And I’m eating a juicy, refreshing apple. And there’s other smiling, frolicking people around. And I splash around in a river playfully. And I lie in the grass, the sun shining down on my skin. You know that feeling? When you’re at the pool or the beach or the lake, and you swim a bit, and it’s refreshing, then you get out and just lounge in the sun. That feeling when the sun warms you up. It doesn’t burn you, it warms you. It feels good to be alive, to be able to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin that’s full of life! That’s true warmth. Bliss.

That’s how the Pastoral Symphony makes me feel. 

That is, until Zeus shows up, the absolute BASTARD! 

The next section is the Dance of the Hours, by Ponchielli. This is one of the most fun parts. There’s ostriches doing ballet, and eating huge things. There’s these elegant hippos dancing around. There’s these conniving crocodile guys. And the elephants are scared of the crocodiles. It’s a lot of fun.

The NEXT section is the Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky. It’s about Chernabog, who’s kinda like the devil or something. It’s pretty horrifying, and really dark. It’s part of that whole thing, where Disney has the facade of being really sweet and “Wholesome ™” but they have a bunch of really dark, scary scenes. In a way, that’s one of the creepiest things, when something has the illusion of being sweet and innocent, but really it’s sinister and evil! You see it a lot in horror movie trailers and stuff, some little girl singing “Mary had a little lamb” really slow and creepy-like. It’s supposed to be a sweet song that a kid would sing, but now it’s sinister, which makes it extra creepy and scary. 

Some of the animation here doesn’t work well for me. Like, Chernabog is on the mountain, and he’s calling souls to him or whatever, and some are like “ghosts” riding pegasus skeletons. They’re trying to look kind of translucent, but it just kind of comes across as an incomplete sketch:

Just doesn’t look very good, in my opinion.

The final section is Ave Maria, by Franz Schubert. Such beautiful music. Even if you’re not a religious person, this is just an emotionally powerful piece of music. The slow-paced animation gives us a soothing finale to an epic experience.

But yeah, this is an incredible film. Beautiful animation and beautiful music. And just the concept of this movie is insane. To do this animated film/classical concert was so unlike anything else. It was gutsy, I mean, an animated, epic piece of art, no one had ever done that before. It was risky, cause it could’ve totally sucked! But it was great! If I recall correctly, I think Walt Disney actually wanted to make a bunch of Fantasia movies, that they could be released with some new segments, some old, kind of like a classical concert. Obviously that didn’t happen, and it took 60 years to make another one. Personally, I would love to see more Fantasia-esque movies. Perhaps it’s not a good financial decision to make those movies.