Italy gives Disney the boot

Unless you're a denizen of the midnight movie circuit or an aficionado of foreign cult films, you've probably never heard of "Allegro Non Troppo" let alone seen it. It's not a movie that's in wide circulation either (luckily a local library had a copy of the long-out-of-print DVD, or our CineVerse group would have been out of luck). But for those who opt to take this road less traveled, I suggest that the journey is satisfying and worthwhile. That's because "Allegro Non Troppo" is infused with an idiosyncratic artistry and comic approach that is distinctively different from what Americans expect. Watching the picture also provides a fascinating counterpoint contrast to Disney's "Fantasia," which it obviously apes in structure. A roundup of last night's group discussion on this movie follows.

WHAT ABOUT ALLEGO NON TROPPO CAUGHT YOU OFF GUARD AND SURPRISED YOU, IN A GOOD OR BAD WAY?

• The film is obviously influenced by Disney’s Fantasia; it can be interpreted as both a loving homage and a mischievous spoof of that film. 
• It echoes or parodies at least three of Fantasia’s segments: the Pastoral Symphony segment with its fauns and nymphs; the Rite of Spring/evolution of the earth segment; and the Night on Bald Mountain segment. 
• It also interconnects each animated segment with a live-action interlude. 
• Reviewer Richard Scheib wrote: “Allegro Non Troppo is also a far more adult film than Fantasia. Some of the segments are sexually overt and Bruno Bozzetto has a much darker sense of humor. The end of the film is like a series of Warner Brothers cartoons directed by someone with a sick sense of humor…The live action sequences rely on a Three Stooges slapstick freneticism.” 
• “Rather than go for the refined beauty that hundreds of Disney animators were able to create in "Fantasia," he embraces his status as a low-budget operation and eschews "Fantasia's" self-importance for whimsy and social commentary. This allows "Allegro Non Troppo" to avoid becoming a knock-off of a famous film and become a masterpiece in its own right,” wrote reviewer Jeremy Fuster. 
• Reviewer Ken Hanke said: “Allegro Non Troppo satirizes the combined pomposity and squeaky-clean quality of Fantasia at every turn.” 
• It employs a more ragged, crude animation style than the pristine craftsmanship and classic lines, saturated colors and intricate detail of a Disney feature-length animated movie. The cartoons here look more quickly drawn and feature characters with less anthropomorphic shapes and more exaggerated, rounded characteristics. 
• It definitely feels of its time, rooted in 1970s countercultural sensibilities, psychedelia, and adult vibes, at a time when other non-Disney animated feature films were often naughty, trippy and experimental (e.g., Ralph Bashki’s movies like Fritz the Cat and Wizards, René Laloux’s Fantasic Planet, etc.). 
• It’s got the pedigree and reputation of a cult film, a midnight movie, a college campus favorite, and an arthouse picture. These brandings would have hurt its commercial and mainstream appeal, but the fact that it wasn’t a mainstream popular success would have given it high street cred. 

WHAT THEMES EMERGE AFTER VIEWING ALLEGO NON TROPPO?

• Classicism (depicted and celebrated in Fantasia) has given way to modernism. Consider how the movie seems to satirize the mythical and fantastical realms that are meant to be adored in Fantasia, choosing instead to focus on technology, innovation and modern values and concerns (sex, lust, post-apocalyptic regret, a drug-infused consciousness, etc.). 
• Life is ever-changing, evolving and morphing. “The movie as a whole ponders the absence of permanence,” posited AV Club writer Noel Murray. 
• The randomness and insignificance of man’s existence in the universe. 
• Hell is modern society—with its materialistic trappings, sexual obsessions and overreliance on technology. 

WHAT OTHER FILMS OR ARTISTS DOES ALLEGRO NON TROPPO CONJURE UP?

• 2001: A Space Odyssey and its “Dawn of Man” segment 
• The film “Chariots of the Gods”, which is satirized in this movie’s Bolero segment 
• Woody Allen and Mel Brooks movies 
• The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine animated film 
• The offbeat and adult comic sensibilities of Federico Fellini films 
• The adult and bizarre Terry Gilliam animations in Monty Python films 
• The surreal artistic style of Salvador Dali 
• The Wizard of Oz, in that both pictures use color to convey the realm of fantasy vs. black and white/sepia to depict the real world. 
• Three Stooges shorts, with its slapstick 
• Chuck Jones-style Looney Tunes animation 
• The artistic stylings of Robert Crumb and Peter Max