6 – Saludos Amigos
Can you really criticize a movie for
not telling a story if they weren't trying to tell a story in the
first place? That's basically how I feel about Disney's 1942 movie
Saludos Amigos. Disney first
created the movie as goodwill toward South American countries to help
fight the ties that some of these countries had for Nazi Germany.
They sent artists, composers and other creators down to these
countries to create some shorts that would help those countries
sympathize more with America. The result was four shorts that took
different locations and used them as inspiration for cute, while a
bit shallow, shorts.
Lake Titicaca
The
first short simply shows some non animated clips of the village life
and culture of Lake Titicaca. All of the movie is narrated by a voice
that teaches about the things being shown on the screen. It was all
pretty informative and interesting so I can't really complain there.
It's especially interesting to me seeing that this movie was made in
1942, which at the time of this writing was 72 years ago. This really
is like a little document of the past now and it's interesting seeing
what their lives were like and I wonder what their lives are like
now. This doesn't just go for this clip but basically any of the
clips that showed real people.
After
this it moves on to a short starring Donald Duck that is a bit more
slapstick and funny. Donald gets to interact with villagers and a
llama and we get to learn a bit more about their life (though I'm
sure some of it wasn't totally accurate even back then). While it's
not terribly deep, it's interesting to see how the artists were
inspired by the real life clips and getting to see how they decided
to animate those same things later on.
Pedro
This short was a
bit more ambitious. By that I mean they actually tried to tell a
little story. The story is about as basic as you can get but it's
cute and just what the scope of the project needed. It has everything
you really need in a story as short and basic as this; a cute little
character, an obstacle for him to overcome and a lesson for him to
learn. I have no real complaints with the story. It did what it
needed to do.
What's much more
interesting to me about this story is how it came about. If the movie
isn't bending the truth then the creators came up with the story
during the goodwill tour. That's really interesting to me because
it's cool to know that this trip really inspired them to make
something. I really like knowing where their inspiration really came
from.
El Gaucho Goofy
This
short was much like the first one. It started with some real life
clips of Argentinian gaucho and it was similarly interesting. It then
went on to a more funny animated segment, this time starring Goofy.
Again, it was interesting and informative and even funny at times but
nothing really mindblowing.
Aguarela do Brasil
Now this segment
was actually pretty cool. I may be a bit biased because I'm half
Brazilian but I thought it was really cool what they did with the
animated segment. It starts, like most of the other clips, with real
life footage but moves on to an animated segment that really
impressed me. It was basically themed around an artist painting
Brazilian scenery in watercolor and having those things come to life
on the page. I thought some of that was really cool. That idea of an
artist painting things in sync with music would be a really cool
theme for Fantasia. After this it goes on to introduce a new
character José Carioca. He's a pretty simple parrot character and
pretty funny so it was cool to see him interact with Donald Duck. It
was personally pretty cool too to see a Portuguese speaking character
interact and basically star in his own little Disney Short.
Overall Saludos
Amigos didn't blow me away. It was cute and interesting and even
funny at times. It doesn't really try to tell a great story so I
can't really criticize it for it. But then I think of movies like
Transformers and feel like they might sort of fall into
similar categories. At the end of the day, though, I really don't
think they're the same. Transformers doesn't really make
itself clear that it's mindless fun when it tries to inject stupid
dramatic themes and completely ineffective humor. Saludos Amigos
on the other hand just wanted to make a small tribute to our South
American neighbors.
Luckily, the fun
with Donald and José Carioca won't stop here...
6 down. 47 to go.
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