A Masterpiece!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

A young filmmaker has an idea for a movie that he thinks is revolutionary: make an animated musical. As the movie is about to start, he receives a call from Hollywood to tell him someone called Prisney or Grisney has already done this. The enthused filmmaker doesn't let this affect his spirit.I think it's courteous of Bruno Bozzetto to so quickly acknowledge the debt this movie has to the original animated musical, Fantasia. Indeed Allegro Non Troppo is almost as good Disney's movie and in many ways more adult. It's not just that the situations are darker, sexier and more morally ambiguous.This movie is also a commentary on the creative process and so a lot of its jokes can be lost on a younger public. Unlike Fantasia, Bozzetto's movie has a lot of scenes with human characters interacting (these are shot in black-and-white, to contrast with the wonderful colors of the animated sequences). Here, the Maestro, the Presenter and the Animator discuss the creation of art in a hilarious way. For instance, the Animator has been chained to a wall for a long time, being only released to draw the animation. The orchestra, a group of decadent old ladies, has been kept in a cage and treated practically like cattle.This is a dark and satirical look into the procession of artistic creation and is what distinguishes Allegro Non Troppo from its ancestor.As for the sequences, they're all fascinating and the use of styles is remarkable. They use cartoons, interaction between humans and cartoons (like Who Framed Roger Rabit?), claymation and water colors. The choice of music is beautiful, including Sibelius' Valse Triste, Ravel's Bolero, plus Debussy, Stravinsky, Dvorak, and Vivaldi.Some sequences are surely meant to mirror sequences in Fantasia; others are witty observations about the stupidity of human life; others deal with timeless questions about Mankind. And some are just emotional pieces sure to bring anyone to tears.Like the Presenter boldly claims, Prisney never did anything like this. That doesn't mean it's better than Fantasia. I'd put it on the same level in terms of craft, intelligence, choice of music, and the ability to set animation to preexisting music. It can't be easy work and for that deserves to be better known so everyone can appreciate the hard work the filmmakers put into this.

TROPPO is a corrective to Disney's FANTASIA, a dark satire from Italy that even cattily refers to the Disney classic. I am not sure what inspired the filmmakers to churn out a Disney spoof so many years after the fact (FANTASIA was first released in the 1940s, TROPPO in 1977), but TROPPO is great fun for adult audiences. Among other episodes, a horny faun lustily pursues naked young maidens to the strains of Debussy and sludge at the bottom of a liquor bottle evolves into some pretty nasty lifeforms to the strains of Stravinsky. The live action interludes are far less interesting, shot in black and white and badly dubbed and acted, although the actress playing the mute scrubwoman is breathtaking.

I first saw "Allegro non troppo" in a cinema on it's release and have watched it since whenever it appears on TV. The choice of music and the contrast of the grainy B&W film with the animator's coloured cartoon efforts make for a wonderfully crafted film. I was so impressed by Allegro that I had always wanted a top quality commercial copy so I considered buying the VHS tape when it became available but waited 'til a more stable technology was available. As it has not been on sale at any DVD shops I have finally bitten the bullet and ordered a copy. It has been a long wait(nearly 30 years) but well worth it.The internal comparisons with Disney's Fantasia, which I also have, parodying the constant US remakes such as The Bird Cage for La Cage, The Good the bad for Seven samurai etc. The music is all great, a better mix than in Fantasia. The Bolero will always remind me of Allegro and the monkey rather than "10" and Bo.

Though I loved Walt Disneys Fantasia as a young kid and will credit it with being original, it is Allegro Non Troppo which is the ultimate artful piece when it comes to animation on music. So much more feeling, humor and variation in artwork. The sad parts still nearly get me to tears just when I hear the music (Valse Triste by Jean Sibelius) while some of the funny parts are as hilarious as they are interesting because of the subtle (moral) messages. The art work ranges from simple cartoon-ish to flowing water color paintings. What impressed me most about almost all of the animations was how well they fitted the music. Not just the rhythm, but also the emotion. As a kid I was convinced that the music was created to fit with the animations only later to discover that some of the music was centuries old.