Fantasia 2000 (Film) Review

 

 
 
 
In so far as expectation can take us, what makes a work transcendental? It's hard to define but likely it's what captures the elements that informed our passion, our excitement and the desires we once knew as children. What guided us as we first stepped into a world we were only just starting to understand and how do they stick with us, subsumed beneath the overwhelm of the now?

 

Fantasia 2000 is a film that as with many pieces has flaws that stick within the craw and keep us anchored to the mundane. The lack of any warning of flashing lights in a film that has intense scenes of it would be one factor. Some of its introductions from recognizable
faces are confusing or distracting or simply seem to pull away. Either the chemistry of people playing off one another, even recognizable Disney characters is dulled or it feels a little awkward in transition. And some of the pieces, including the return of the Sorcerer's Apprentice or the Donald Duck featured journey of Noah's Ark fall by the wayside somewhat unless this is your first viewing of the former perhaps. And that is where my critiques of the format end as what followed was an experience that took me back to the love of music and animation I'd held in since I was very young.

 

The pieces within 2000 sing to moments of experimental and traditional animation and themes of music that transform my enjoyment into gentle wonder. One of the film's opening acts depicting the Pines of Rome and the Whale's journey is stunning and defines the moment I found the film to actually capture wonder in the combination of an understanding of the music's path and putting the journey to the screen distinctly against a beautiful story. This continues easily with Rhapsody in Blue, a magnificent express of the liveliness of the genre against a sympathetic journey of characters that we are easily allowed to grow that sympathy for rather naturally. This carries on through more pieces that both play with experimental styles that while not always perfect, attempt or try to craft artistic clashing with deliberation that works quite well such as the inhumanity of the toys in the Steadfast Tin Soldier while still maintaining very human hearts in their motivation.

 

The crescendo of the film, the Fire Bird, is magnificent and really brings to an ending a beautiful moment of where I began this review; a moment of transcendence. It dares to use massive creative skill to craft a simple story that keys into perhaps primal motivation and the basis of our existence; life and death and the cycle that follows us all. Fantasia 2000 at its best is a film that allows that gorgeous collaborative effort of music and art to tell stories dancing amid the majestic. The transcendent joy of living and the earnestness of its value weaved through. In this way, it truly is fantastical.

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