Blog - Allegro Non Troppo
Allegro Non Troppo
Today we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu to see Bruno Bozzetto's "Allegro Non Troppo" (DVD at Amazon US). The Japanese title is "Neo Fantasia", and promotion is putting emphasis on its similarity with Disney's "Fantasia".
Bozzetto is the creator of Signor Rossi, a series I loved when I was little, and recently rediscovered through the soundtrack released in 1999.
"Allegro Non Troppo" is a 1976 film, and consists of a series of six short animated films each built over and inspired from a classical piece (Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", Dvorak's "Slavonic Dance n.7", Ravel's "Boléro", Sibelius' "Valse Triste", Vivaldi's "Concerto in C-Dur", Stravinsky's "The Firebird").
The whole is stringed together with hilarious live action black and white film showing a crazy filmmaker forcing an animator to create live on stage in real-time, with an orchestra (formed of also forced women) playing the music. Animation also mixes with live action, such as when even Mr Rossi makes an apparition to try to pick up some food for his poor illustrator.
The film is being screened until January 28 and is preceded with other Bozzetto shorts. The ones we saw were "Grasshoppers" (series of civilizations destroying themselves and always giving back place to the peaceful grasshoppers) and "Strip" (a live action striptease shown to animated spectators who can hardly contain themselves). The following week will show "Mr Rossi buys a car".
I recommend checking the Bruno Bozzetto official site for many short films. His recent Flash shorts are also a lot of fun!
Posted on January 16, 2005 at 21:25 | Tweet
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