Like all children who grew up in Italy in the 1940s and 1950s, Bozzetto grew up on the films of Walt Disney. He has said that he learned about ecology from watching Bambi (1942) and classical music from Fantasia (1940), films that fed his imagination and his love of film and art.

At that time, no one in Italy was producing feature-length animation, so Disney’s offerings were all that were available. When Bozzetto made his feature directorial debut with West and Soda (1965), an animated parody of American Westerns that coincided with the rise of the spaghetti western genre, there had not been a feature-length animated film produced in Italy in two decades. He quickly followed it with The SuperVips (1968), another parody, this time of comic-book superheroes. At the same time, he was producing dozens of commercials for Italian television and using the money to fund his own short films.

Allegro non troppo still stands as Bozzetto’s most ambitious project. Borrowing the structure of Fantasia, Bozzetto constructed the film out of six dialogue-free animated episodes, each of which is scored to classical music. He also used the idea of incorporating live-action interludes involving the orchestra playing the music, but whereas Disney’s use of Leopold Stowkowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra was distinguished and stately, Bozzetto’s live action, which was shot in dingy black and white, is more comical and slapsticky than the animation itself. And, like the animation, there is a dark slant to it, as much of the humor derives from the abuse heaped on a bespectacled animator (Maurizio Nichetti) and the orchestra, which is composed entirely of chattering elderly women, by the orchestra conductor (Néstor Garay), who is depicted as a gruff, overbearing bully.

Unfortunately, these live-action sequences are the film’s greatest weakness, as the pratfalls and physical comedy grate against the beauty and elegance on display in the animation, as well as their heady themes of life and loss. The live action also plays too much as meta-apology, with the film’s presenter (Maurizio Micheli) expounding on the grand idea of wedding beautiful images with classical music and then taking an unexpected griping phone call from “Prisney or Grisney--some American.” Considering the gumption it takes to make a film inspired by Fantasia, one can see why Bozzetto felt the need to wrap his film up in meta-jokes, as if he’s afraid we’ll think he thinks he’s getting away with something.

But, even the tackiness of the live action isn’t enough to detract from Bozzetto’s accomplishments in the realm of animation, and it is here that Allegro non troppo soars. Like Bozzetto’s short films, each of the film’s animated segments has a social theme woven into the humor and beauty. The opening segment is a perfect example, as Bozzetto humorously explores vanity and the shallow pursuit of youth and beauty in the story of a squat, aging satyr who attempts to win the affections of the naked nymphs around him by looking more youthful. His attempts are pathetic and therefore sad, yet it’s hard not to laugh at the satyr’s expense because he is so silly and vain.

The film’s most visually rapturous segment is the evolution sequence scored to the steady beat of Ravel’s “Bolero.” Beginning with the amusing idea of life being spawned from the remnants on an intergalactic soda bottle left behind on earth, it builds steadily in scope and grandeur, showing us absurdly fantastical creatures emerging from the remnants of others. (The overall style and look of this sequence is reminiscent of Gerald Scarfe’s haunting animated sequences in Pink Floyd The Wall). However, despite the beauty of the sequence, one cannot escape Bozzetto’s clearly despondent view of evolution, which shows Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” ethos in the creatures’ constantly trying to eat or stomp on those that came before them. Evolution is less about progress than simple survival, which is the progenitor of war, pollution, and other human senselessness, all of which Bozzetto has critiqued relentlessly throughout his career.

The most haunting sequence features a bright-eyed cat slinking around the remains of a burnt-out house, imagining the family that used to live there. The quiet poignancy of this segment stands in contrast to the vivacious hilarity of one of the final episodes, scored to Stravinsky, in which Adam and Eve refuse to eat the apple, so the snake decides to eat it instead, unwittingly unleashing on himself an overwhelming universe of sin.

The beauty of Allegro non troppo is the way in which it maintains such a diversity of approaches, both visual and thematic, but still coheres as a larger-than-life statement about life itself. Unfortunately, like Fantasia, it was not commercially successful, and Bozzetto has yet to attempt another feature-length animated film. In the meantime, though, he continued to make animated shorts, some of which are among the best ever produced. However, Allegro non troppo will likely be his true legacy.

Copyright ©2005 James Kendrick

All images copyright ©2004 Home Vision Entertainment