And the Magic of Walt Disney reaches new highs with the wonderful FANTASIA - 1940.

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Animation is an absolutely incredible art since its beginning, as well as all the great artists that represent it in cinema, without exceptions. But of course the name the Walt Disney will always be associated with classic animation since the creation of Mickey Mouse in 1928 which has established him as an Animation Master unparalleled in history. But it was around 1938 when Mickey was losing ground to Donald Duck. Disney had the right vehicle for this: an old Goethe poem known as; The Sorcerer's Apprentice (also inspired by the song of the same name by Paul Dukas). For this somewhat daring feat, he also considered the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, conductor Leopold Stokowski who immediately made himself available to work together and suggested that instead of making a short they could together develop a full-length film. Disney agreed. And so it was that Walt Disney dared once again to innovate and even challenge its artists to what would eternally go down in history as the first full-length film that would combine animation with classical music with a selection of 7 scores from the best known and most famous composers of all times. When I watched Fantasia in 1985, I was 18 years old and I remember that I had bought my first VCR player and I was choosing very judiciously what I should watch. I had seen some excerpts from the movie on some television specials at the time but hadn't seen the full movie until then. I believe that the first copies that the local video store had were not the original version and should have been edited because young children certainly didn't have the patience to watch a cartoon that didn't have action and dialogue. Not to mention the final episode where a demon appears on top of the mountain in one of the most interesting animations ever made so far. I remember my mom didn't like me watching it when I was little because I didn't sleep well when I watched horror movies and for her that part was one of them. But it is clear that this movie is imposing and certainly audiences at that time did not understand how Disney came out of films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio that appealed much more to children and the family in general, went for something so serious and eclectic. Glad he did it. Bach, Tchaikovsky, Dukas, Stravinsky (the only living composer at the time), Beethoven, Ponchielli, Mussorgsky and Schubert these were the composers selected by Disney (who loved classical music and that's why the LA Opera in downtown Los Angeles bears his name), Stokowski and Deems Taylor (famous radio announcer who hosted Metropolitan Opera concerts). I consider this film as a good wine... as it ages, it is better to be appreciated. With a few exceptions, the film as a whole enchants and the animation is extremely sophisticated for the time. I can't help but appreciate every moment that something different is present like fairies, abstract waves and light effects, fairies skiing in the snow and gently touching the leaves of the trees as the seasons change, flowers sliding in the water as if they were in a cabaret, dinosaurs fighting for their own survival only to culminate in the cosmos of extinction, Greek mythology revisited with centaurs, winged horses and the drunken God of Wine, alligators, ostriches, elephants and a female hippopotamus dancing ballet and weighing less than a feather in movements delicate and mind-blowing. Not to mention that this is the only feature film with the participation of Mickey Mouse in his most celebrated film as an inexperienced magician and a broom determined to never stop working. At the end, for me the best part of all is a parade of macabre demonic creatures that at the end of their act gives place to the bells of a distant cathedral in which a procession of lights gives an ecumenical sense of praise to the heavens. And I praise the skies a million times to thank all these talents who made it all possible back in 1940 to the eternity that only imagination and animation can bring. I can't help but admire Walt Disney's courage and determination to produce something so sublime that I don't even think he knew what it would turn out to be. Of course, the movie was admired by some, but it did not yield a profit, on the contrary, it caused a lot of damage to the studio, but like all masterpieces it surpasses time and is consecrated with new and old admirers like myself.