Allegro non troppo (1976)

Allegro non troppo
Directed by Bruno Bozzetto
Written by Bruno Bozzetto, Guido Manuli, and Maurizio Nichetti
1976/Italy
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

The Presenter: It’s nothing. They’re mad. Mad as hatters. They insist that our film – this is all so ridiculous – was already made by a certain fellow years ago. A certain someone by the name of Prisney or Grisney. Some American.

The Fantasia (1940) concept is given a surreal treatment with live action comic interludes.

A presenter explains the filmmaker’s “unprecedented” idea of setting animation to classical music.  The unprecedented part turns out to be that instead of Stokowski we get an orchestra of grandmas conducted by a slightly mad man and we are introduced to the slightly mad artist.  The animation is surreal and each segment is followed by a comic sketch.

The humor was probably lost in the translation but I enjoyed the animated sequences.  It’s no Fantasia but it is a fairly fun watch.

Clip – “Ravel’s Bolero”