Destino

Based on a 1945 and 1946 collaboration between the two strange bedfellows if there ever were any, Walt Disney...



...and Salvador Dalí...



Destino was shelved after 1946 due to financial concerns and put on indefinite hiatus. In 1999, the project was revitalized, and based on Dalí's (and John Hench's) storyboard, the project was subsequently animated. Done by Disney Studio France, it was produced by Baker Bloodworth and directed by Dominique Monfrey. Nominated for a 2003 Best Animated Short Academy Award, and show in museums from the LA County Museum of Art, NYMOMA, and Melbourne Australia. It is currently projected to have a DVD release sometime next year.

I try to avoid going too much into my "animation as a legitimate medium of expression" argument, because it's either a very easy or very difficult argument depending on who I'm talking to. But, in short, like any form of expression, from writing, to painting, to photography, to film and video, and to animation (which carries such a strong "immature/for children," bias that people seem blinded to their potential aesthetic and thematic capabilities,) there should be no stigma to a medium for artistic expression.

I saw it just recently, and wanted to share it with everyone. It's like a moving Dalí painting, and has some parts reminiscent of some of Dalí's short works (the ants seem straight out of Un Chien Andalou, for example.) This allows some interesting juxtapositions and metamorphoses of forms, and playing with time in a really intriguing way. It's like a cross between an experimental Dalí film and a Dalí painting, and I really don't have any more glowing review of it than that.

Here is Destino. Enjoy!