We Sent Our Best Duck

Disney entered a new era with 1942's Saludos Amigos, a hilarious and fascinating combination of comedy shorts and documentary footage. Partly funded by the U.S. government to counteract Nazi influence in South America, this film shows the benefits of field research.

Amusing animations of planes chasing bulls over a map of South America establishes the live action story of Disney animators, and Walt Disney himself, visiting various locations including Chile, Brazil, and Lake Titicaca.

The narrator explains how the customs and wardrobe on display are remnants of Inca civilisation and it's genuinely astonishing to see. Just as effective is a following, inventive segment of blundering tourist Donald Duck (Clarence Nash), who manages with one pull of a reed to dismantle one of the local boats shown in the documentary footage.

Other segments include one about an adorable mail plane and Goofy (Pinto Colvig) adapting himself to the Gaucho lifestyle. Again, extensive research is shown paying off as the documentary footage of gauchos is followed by Goofy managing to cheerfully fumble everything in creative ways.

Very short for a feature length film--only 45 minutes--Saludos Amigos concludes with Donald meeting a charming Brazilian parrot named Jose Carioca (Jose Oliveira). This segment combines nice samba with some of the captivatingly surreal animation reminiscent of Fantasia.

Donald is reintroduced when a paintbrush creates a colourful flower which devours a bee. The flower then, for some reason, morphs into Donald.

With World War II and Disney's financial woes it would be some years before the company could release another full length feature aside from anthologies likes this. But as anthology films go, this is certainly brilliant.

Saludos Amigos is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1372

A diff'rent taste deserves familiar beans.
In finding roasts to fit the pastry drink.
To dive in bitter depths rewards the means.
Delicious darkness bids the tongue to sink.
A helpful glow directs the eye to light.
Collected parts beseem a human's path.
We gave the store without a pillow fight.
Conclusions came, conveyed to bubble bath.
The perfect time for coffee came again.
The restless eyes in circles rode the cloud.
A single captive song was held in din.
There's something silent finding things are loud.
Created toads were waiting late for me.
We took the table, pots, and spoons for tea.

Your Terribly Friendly Vampire Neighbourhood

Living among vampires for any extended period must be disorientating. This is why it may only be partially accurate to call 1970's Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Valerie a týden divů) a surrealist film. Sure, a lot seems to be taking place on this girl's journey to sexual awakening that makes no literal sense. But it's all pieces of sense, as they might be rearranged by bored immortals. In any case, it's always fascinating and intensely beautiful.

Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerova) is the only inhabitant of a 19th century town who I'm pretty sure is not a vampire but nothing is perfectly clear or stable in this movie. This works out to be exhilarating for anyone used to interpreting symbolism who's willing to go along for a wild ride outside their comfort zone. There are plenty of symbols with meanings that seem clear to me--I like how Valerie is associated with green apples. As though to represent original sin but unripened due to her youth.

But there's always the appearance of teeth or white face paint to, in typical New Wave style given an in-story explanation, remind you that this is a show. When a priest (Jan Klusak) attempts to molest Valerie, the conventional critic will say, "Ah, an indictment of the church's sexual hypocrisy." But this "priest" has a strangely pale face. Is he in any sense really a priest? Is the priest molesting the girl just another game for the vampires, another arrangement of the musical chairs of superficial morality to provide some spice to sexual sport?

Somehow, amidst all these sinister shufflings of meaning, all these teasing exploitations of human culture and tradition, Valerie has to experience a perfectly innocent puberty. She doesn't seem all that frightened and only sometimes confused. Of course, a child might be amenable to all these games. And what's it to her if her father is a bishop who's also a polecat and a demon who's, like everyone else, trying to molest her and/or steal her earrings?

The movie would work well as a series of stills--every shot is so exquisitely composed, it's a consistent delight to behold. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is available on The Criterion Channel.