DESTINO…In 1946, two legendary artists began a collaboration on a short film. More than half a century later, their creation has finally been completed.
You love Disney movies and felt like the Lion King was custom made for you to watch, at that age. Now you still love the likes, but just because the princess in the Princess & The Frog is black doesnt mean you think it’s great. You think about it too much now, so it’s harder to enjoy. You still love animated films but Disney today…not so sure. And you cant blame that. You had your Disney times and they were the best, at least better than today’s. You need your fix but don’t know where to go for it…
I’m a cartoon fan. I love music. i admire art. All this because I’m in continuous discovery of them and each stop is exciting. Even discovering things you dislike. So i keep going, keep looking, keep discovering.
Falling into this came about quite randomly. From reading Saul Williams’ eloquent, poetic, and fierce intro to Volcanic Sunlight (thank you GdeMabs via twitter) I was curious to watch his ‘Dance’ Video, where Saul reminded me of a raw Lenny Kravitz with a bit of Afrobeat, and a Faithless kinda flow…
Then I saw Saul Williams featured in a Janelle Monae (who i absolutely adore) song called ‘Dance or Die’ on the Archandroid album…naturally, what originally was a Saul Williams listening trip turned into a diversion to Archandroid…which I now realise I havent listend to widely enough…I was totally taken by ‘cold war’ and enjoyed ‘tightrope’ but didnt dig deeper into the whole album…so I now fell into Sir Greendown from Archandroid…
First thing that catches your ear: the music, its melody…Makes you think of an unconventional romantic film noir, where the femme fatale, usually a manipulative vixen is emotionally vulnerable and secretely longing for Sir Greendown as she boasts being the subject of deadly love triangles…
Then to the music of the song, comes Monae’s voice, a fresh soulful voice, a beautiful contrast to the oldish feel of the sound…which also reminds you of something you’d hear Edith Piaf singing over…some 40’s cabaret tune with a young opera voice! Anyhow, Monae’s voice enlightens the melody and gives it a story, I found it so visual already…She speaks of Sir Greendown, telling him to ‘wake me in the night’…asking him ‘lets leave in an hour meet me at the tour’…and you think of a cry for love, musically arranged to take you away…
You can really feel the song…i believe…As i felt it…I read the youtube comments, as I always do out of curiousity…and found out from a comment, Monae said her inspiration for this song to be ‘Destino’. I saw that a montage was made with the ‘Destino’ animation and ‘Sir Greendown’ in the background…and its amazing! She really is genius, coz that song and the short film are in sync!
Discovering ‘Destino’ was a delight, and is what led me to make this entry. The song obviously blew my mind but with the animation, it became a whole other thing. You love them but today’s Disney’s cant keep you focused…try this.
Destino is an animated short film released in 2003 but that originally began being produced between 1945/46 by John Hench - Walt Disney studio artist, and Salvador Dali, and revived by Walt Disney’s nephew, Roy E. Disney in 1999. Its only 6 minutes and something seconds and is a look into Chronos falling in love with a mortal, and Dali’s paintings narrating the visual sequences to the Mexican ballad written for the short film by Armando Dominguez and sang by Dora Luz. The animation, includes the best of Dali’s surrealist work…melting clocks… marching ants…floating eyeballs. I read somewhere that Dali told a journalist at the Disney studio in 1946 that all his pictorial concepts would appear: the melancholy of space, dissolving images, hallucinations of man and landscape!
say.a.delight.
Please note, Sir Greendown only plays til 2.38, the montage continues with Cold War.
