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Director: Bruno Bozzetto
Release Date: 1983
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Sigmund’ is a very short cartoon, commissioned for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
The cartoon consists of one scene in a blue room in which a bespectacled little boy imagines himself as the sport stars he watches on television. The little boy’s imagination is shown by metamorphosis: we watch him change into the sport stars, growing with every metamorphosis.
‘Sigmund’ is a sweet short, but neither memorable, funny or one of Bozzetto’s best.
Watch ‘Sigmund’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Bruno Bozzetto
Release Date: October 31, 1968
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Vip mio fratello superuomo’* is Bozzetto’s second feature, and it a great improvement on his first (‘West and Soda‘ from 1965).
The designs are bolder, the pace is higher, the timing sharper, and the story more original. The film starts rightaway with a hilarious history of the VIP superheroes through time. It then introduces our heroes, the superhero SuperVIP and his weak little bespectacled brother, MiniVIP. They end upon an island where a super-villain plans to turn mankind into brainless consumers.
The result is a very nonsensical superhero story, told to a great effect, with the minimum of means and very limited animation. It also shows Bozzetto’s aversion against consumerism, a theme he would expand upon in his masterpiece ‘Allegro non troppo’ (1976). Unlike that latter feature, ‘Vip mio fratello superuomo’ remains virtually unknown. This is a pity, for this funny film deserves a wider audience.
Watch and excerpt from ‘Vip mio fratello superuomo’ yourself and tell me what you think:
* also known as ‘My Brother Superman’
Director: Bruno Bozzetto
Release Date: 1967
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
The title of this cartoon can be translated as ‘life in a tin can’ and this is an apt title.
In this cartoon Bozzetto reduces a man’s whole life to several minutes. The main character’s life takes place in and between depressingly tall grey buildings. He is only allowed brief episodes of sheer joy: during is boyhood, when he falls in love, and when he becomes a father. These short episodes are depicted by colorful pictures of nature, accompanied by lyric music.
‘Una vita in scatola’ must be Bozzetto’s most perfectly timed cartoon, and it is his first real masterpiece.
Watch ‘Una vita in scatola’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Bruno Bozzetto
Release Date: October 1, 1965
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘West And Soda’ has a classic Western story: an evil villain is after the land owned by the lovely Clementine. Luckily she is rescued by our cool hero, Johnny, who doesn’t talk much, but who can shoot!
‘West and Soda’ is Bruno Bozzetto’s first feature film and unfortunately, it shows. The Italian animator is at his best in short, well-timed pantomime gags, and he clearly has difficulties with this longer medium. Neither the animation nor the designs are particularly appealing, and the feature suffers a little from its length. Generously mocking almost every aspect of the classic western, ‘West and Soda’ is as silly as it is predictable. Luckily there are many throwaway gags to keep the viewer laughing from time to time.
However, Bozzetto’s comic genius really shines through in two offbeat scenes, in which Bozzetto does what he does best: like his funny short ‘I Due Castelli’ from 1963, these two scenes use a fixed long distance perspective, pantomimed action and a perfect timing, with hilarious results. The first of these two scenes shows us several failing attacks of ferocious ants on Johnny, who is buried up to his head in the desert. The second depicts the villain’s attempts to drop a huge rock on our hero.
Watch the ant scene from ‘West And Soda’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 