"Afternoon of a Faun" (set to Debussy's "Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun") follows the title character, an over-the-hill, tail-chasing little fellow, as he pursues a series of young faun-babes with increasingly frustrating results. Perhaps Jack Nicholson's worst nightmare, this well-remembered short starts the film in fine style and sets the adult but innocent tone of the vignettes to come. Dvorak's "Slavic Dance No. 7" inspires the inconsequential "Empire Builders," a twist on society's need to constantly expand higher and higher in the constant search for a little private space. The most explicit Fantasia homage uses Ravel's "Bolero" to underscore a mind-boggling cause-and-effect piece in which an astronaut's discarded Coke can ignites a surreal evolutionary process, an animation tour de force that influenced students for years to come. The ruthlessly tear-jerking "Feline Fantasies" follows a homeless kitten, accompanied by Sibelius' "Valse Triste," as it trundles through the crumbling remains of its home. The sprightly strains of Vivaldi enliven "The Birds and the Bees," a pun-packed piece in which a pollen-creating bee is stymied by a human couple whose own reproductive urges prove quite susceptible to the other demands of Mother Nature. Finally, "Paradise Lost" adapts Stravinsky's "The Firebird" (later hijacked for Disney's Fantasia 2000) for a speculative piece in which the snake, not Adam or Eve, decides to go for the apple and pays the price.
The general consensus regarding Allegro Non troppo places the animated sequences on a par much higher than the live action ones, and for good reasons; unless one has a high tolerance for broad Italian slapstick, these passages feel more like filler and wear out their welcome too quickly. Fortunately viewers can utilize their handy remote controls to skip to the animation, which is beautifully executed and stylized despite technical and budgetary constraints.
Furthermore, Bozzetto fans can feast on ten additional short films showcasing the animator's varied but always witty style. For the record, the shorts are "Grasshoppers," "Self Service," "Striptease," "Baby Story," "Sigmund," "Big Bang," "Dancing," "Baeus," "Master Tao," and the excellent, oft-screened "A Life in a Tin." Visual quality of the animated material, both in the film and supplements, is quite impressive and colorful, while the black and white live action looks blearier for some reason. The classical music segments of Allegro Non troppo are presented in fairly pinched 2.0 stereo, while everything else appears to be standard mono (albeit spread to both of the front speakers).
More Bozzettonalia can be found in the 42-minute "The World of Bruno Bozzetto," a 2002 featurette in which the director addresses a Milanese audience and discusses his life and career, with a few anecdotes involving his work with Nichetti (who is otherwise all but ignored on the disc). The added material winds up clocking in at nearly two hours, making the disc quite a value beyond the value of the feature film itself. Parents should note that the film does contain some "naughty" elements including some brief animated and live action nudity, but it feels chaste and good-natured by more recent standards. The package is rounded out by informative liner notes from Film Threat's Phil Hall.
For more information about Allegro Non Troppo, visit Home Vision Entertainment. To order Allegro Non Troppo, go to TCM Shopping.
by Nathanial Thompson
