To my surprise this mix of Dali's surrealist ideas with Disney's animation style worked impeccably well together. It was interesting to see a Disney piece without structure as their films are so strongly based on story and narrative making this short film, I feel, very unique.
The style of this short was intriguing to me. The mixtures of shape, surrealist style imagery and colour created a very artistic and expressive feeling piece. The mixing of Disney's beautiful and elegant animation with some of Dali's shocking and immediately recognisable works of art such as his use of eyes, strange creatures and hands with bugs crawling out created a stark contrast that works in building the dream like atmosphere that prominent in surrealist work.
Like many surrealist shorts, the narrative was disjoined and unreadable, yet the emotions and imagery in this one stood out, particularly drawing me in. Although the structure is blurred the piece still evoked emotion showing real strength and power in the imagery. Each close up of the woman's face showed huge skill from the animators at the Walt Disney company as you see so much emotion within the character showing a real understanding of human nature and providing the watcher with moments that they can relate to and feel emotion from despite the disjointed narrative. This made me feel more connected to this piece than I did with the other surrealist films we have watched. These moments allowed the piece to feel complete as it had a clear underlying theme of romance whilst still staying true to the surrealist style.
I enjoyed watching this piece as it is so experimental. Although now 20 years old, it felt refreshing to see Disney try something so unique. I would like to see more pieces that are unusual and don't stick to the preconceived idea of what a film should be, ones that focus on the artistic rather than having so much focus on the narrative and the themes. Overall I think this piece by Disney and Dali shows the success and beauty that can come from collaboration and experimentation.
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