Allegro Non Troppo (1976)
…………………………………………………
Allegro Non Troppo Movie Review
Allegro Non Troppo is a 1976 Italian animated musical package film directed by Bruno Bozzetto. It provides such an unexpectedly delightful experience.
………………………………………………….
“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“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
It’s no secret that I find Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ rather overrated. It’s considered among the greatest achievements of that studio, but I respect it more than I love it as it’s rather flawed and messy in execution. Coming in 36 years later, Italian filmmaker Bruno Bozzetto set out to make his own animated musical anthology. And the results are mesmerizing.
Let’s talk about all of the individual segments one by one. In the first of seven segments, we follow an elderly satyr who is attracted to a beautiful woman and tries to recapture his youth to amusing results. Whereas every segment here is either a tragedy or a comedy, this one falls in the middle as it’s a sad statement on age, but it’s also amusingly executed with fun humor.
The second segment concerns a cave-dweller who builds himself a progressive house, but the others copy him to his frustration. This is one of the slightest segments in the feature because it’s very comical, light and all done in a simplistic, amusing manner. It works and the ending is stupidly funny, but more could have been done with its setting ultimately.
The third segment is basically a redo of ‘Fantasia’s The Rite of Spring segment. Everything here looks amazing, the details are incredible and the bottle imagery is instantly memorable, but it’s the least original of all segments.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The fourth segment is by far the best one. It’s the most serious of the bunch, but also the most tragic as following this cat as it wanders around an abandoned house ruin before it gets demolished was simply heartbreaking. The imagery here is incredibly tragic and the whole story has an incredibly melancholic, deeply human feel to it.
The fifth segment is very comical with this bee being interrupted continuously while she makes lunch so she eventually stings the male of the human couple. It’s slight, but amusing and sweet. As for the fourth one, it’s a twisted version of the Adam and Eve story where the snake gets to eat the apple and experience immoral nature of humans through some hellish imagery. It’s probably the most entertaining and visually appealing short here.
The epilogue sequence wraps up the film so well with a very witty monster. I also liked the live-action segments quite a bit. The black-and-white, dark atmosphere to them contrasted so well with the colorful animation, though those parts are also quite funny at times. I found the humor polarizing as some of it was overly brutal and simply not appealing, but some parts are very funny. It’s typically Italian, but it fits the movie well. The opening is particularly amusing.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
Allegro Non Troppo features absolutely impressive animation and it showcases that Italians can really produce exquisite animated work if inspired, and it’s a shame that they never repeated this level of confidence and greatness.
The colors are fantastic, the imagery is splendid and very memorable in its weirdness. I also loved the character designs, and the score is of course classical and fitting the action on screen so well. The pacing, editing and structure are also stupendous for a package film, much better than in its predecessor. The direction is great and the dialogue is fun as is the humor. And I loved the thematic richness, and especially the variety of serious and comedic tones at display.
Allegro Non Troppo features polarizing humor in the live-action intermission scenes, but overall those parts are pretty good. The animation is spectacular, colorful and providing exquisitely weird and memorable imagery throughout. It’s a surprisingly well edited and structured package film which actually trumps ‘Fantasia’ in quality in large part thanks to the more engaging, more tonally diverse stories.
