Bellano, Marco. "Boléro." : Bruno Bozzetto’s Animated Music. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. 165–176. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 8 Oct. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501350894.ch-007>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 8 October 2021, 07:21 UTC. Copyright © Marco Bellano 2021. Released under a CC BY-NC-ND licence (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 7 Bol é ro Description A Coca-Cola glass bottle, thrown away by the angry conductor, gets drawn on paper and used as an inspirational piece by the animator. As the short fi lm begins, the bottle is now fl ying over an empty and eerie landscape, while high-pitched electronic sound effects accompany its trajectory. In the distance stays the silhouette of a landed space vehicle, with a shape not far from that of the command module of the Apollo Moon missions. The bottle seems to have come from there; with a loud thud, it plunges into the ground and leans to the left. Being very close to the point of view, it almost fi lls the screen transversally. It still contains a few drops of Coca-Cola. The spaceship takes off with a roar: the light from its engines outlines the profi le of the bottle. When the sound of the spaceship wanes away, the music of the Bol é ro slowly fades in. Inside the bottle, the liquid seems to be pulsating. It slowly and jerkily reaches the mouth of the bottle. It fi nally erupts from it and splashes into the ground beneath. Now seen in a close-up view, it looks like a weird dark amoeba, which soon sprouts a single round eye on a thin tentacle. The creature starts crawling around, from left to right. The light changes. The amoeba now has a more defi nite shape: it seems to have grown a tubular mouth. It is attracted by a kind of vegetable growing on the top of a rock; it comes closer to it and sucks on it, pulling it from the ground and gradually revealing its long, slimy, and oddly ramifi ed roots. The creature grows bigger but loses its balance. It falls and hits stony asperities until it smashes onto the ground. A part of it outstretches and gives birth to another creature that soon fi nds a hot lake and goes underwater. Its position is revealed by air bubbles coming up from below; it apparently smashes onto a half-submerged rock and fi nally resurfaces. It seems to be struggling to move; it tenses up, until a bundle of vegetable-like and ever- growing tentacles erupts from its body. The camera frantically follows the 99781501350863_pi-248.indd781501350863_pi-248.indd 116565 116-Mar-216-Mar-21 112:52:202:52:20 166 ALLEGRO NON TROPPO expansion, until a limb forms from the branches and outstretches from above; it lands, immediately followed by a round body with a large mouth, two tusks, and an eye. The whole looks like a new monocular monster, who immediately starts to jump on its single leg and chase small colored lights around it. It eventually melts down, giving birth to many smaller monsters of different shapes and colors, while volcanoes erupt in the background. The last to come out, yellow and with a very wide mouth, starts eating the others. The last surviving prey climbs up a small volcanic cone to fl ee from the voracious monster; a sudden eruption propels it into the air. It starts to fl ap its limbs, like a bird. It makes a smug grin toward the predator that remained on the ground and then evolves into a much more complex fl ying creature. It frolics and spirals into the air, but then, during one of its stunts, it gets eaten by something that looks like a carnivorous plant. This entity splits up into several multicolored worms. They crawl while intertwining; one of them, a pink one, tries to get away but is promptly caught and brought back into the bunch. A large egg appears among their spires. Many other similar bunches of worms are seen crawling and producing eggs in the same way. The eggs simultaneously open and generate pulsating tree-like lifeforms. A forest is born. A procession of animals walks through it; some other join in climbing down the trees. A menacing ape lurks from above and observes the beasts on the march, always walking to the right of the screen. Now elaborate horns adorn the heads of the creatures, and they come in a lot of different sizes and colors. The horns of one of them get stuck in tree branches; scared to death, it stays unnoticed by three gigantic, dinosaur-like animals that are passing by. The procession is now heading toward a canyon. The sky turns dark; lightning fl ashes come from the crack in the mountain. Inside the canyon, the fl ashes are insistent and ominous. The shapes and sizes of the beasts keep becoming more elaborate; one of them, with a globose large head, comes toward the camera. However, the spherical thing was a bunch of bats, perched on the horns of the creature. They fl utter away and swirl into the sky. The rain starts to fall. A dinosaur-like mother, while walking, shelters her pups under her tail. An ape with her cub, though, violently chases them away and takes their place. The camera shows the many leaps and levels of a huge waterfall. The procession gets across on top of it, but one of the monsters falls down. When it goes underwater, it turns into an aquatic creature and, quite relieved, it survives. However, it is soon threatened by other beings that try to eat it. The massive foot of an animal stomps onto one of such beings. The procession is now wading across the water. The malignant ape reappears; it pulls a shielded monster off-screen and soon after reappears, using the carapace as a boat and a club as a paddle. A smaller monster (perhaps the 99781501350863_pi-248.indd781501350863_pi-248.indd 116666 116-Mar-216-Mar-21 112:52:202:52:20 BOLÉRO 167 son of the previous owner of the shield) follows the ape in the water, only to be smashed on the head with the club. An ice age seems to be beginning. Plateaus and hills of ice spread around, covering the animals. The ice momentarily seems a colored and fl at graphic pattern, but then it mutates into a solid whole. A snowstorm breaks out; a fl ying monster cannot keep itself fl ying and lands on an elephant-like creature. The ape returns, as aggressive as ever. It chases a hairy white monster. A camera shake implies that the ape killed it off-screen with its club; in fact, when it returns it is wearing the fur of that animal. The procession cannot be stopped by the snow anyway, and the stomping steps of the larger beasts shake the ground and make the smaller ones rhythmically leap in the air. However, the soil cracks under the weight and many animals fall inside a ravine. Fire erupts from there: it goes up and surrounds the other creatures that try to escape from the fl ames. The ape is scared as well and covers its eyes with its hand; when it looks at its club, though, it sees it burning. At fi rst puzzled, it soon discovers the destructive power of fi re, which can turn other creatures to ashes. In eager anticipation of some malignant plot, it runs ahead of the procession and disappears in the distance. The sun reappears. Now the landscape is a desert. New creatures join in, including a small, fl ightless bird who jumps around. The light changes: a solar eclipse is about to start. The animals are terrifi ed. They bump into each other, they retract into their shields, they dig holes, and hide into them. The multitude stops and trembles, looking at the sky and at the eclipsed sun in fear. But then, they outstretch their neck in marvel at the returning light. A fade in shows tornados raging around. Many of them surround the procession, engulfi ng it in sand. Notwithstanding the fear, the monsters keep walking and fl ying. And then, pyramids appear. Some creatures fl y around their top; while most of the others ignore the monuments, one beast urinates on their stone walls. Another unexpected object comes in the way: a few animals stop to contemplate an intimidating large cross that rises from a relief in the terrain. Other gloomy signs of civilization appear around them: a roman helmet and a spear, a line of gallows, an abandoned tank, open cans, and garbage. Suddenly, the animal cannot proceed anymore. The way is blocked by a multilevel road junction. The ground cracks open and skyscrapers start sprouting from it. The creatures are sent fl ying around; some of them turn into mechanical contraptions, like a building crane or an excavator. Finally, a whole city appears, as the Bol é ro ends. Skyscrapers are everywhere. A giant man looms above them. He seems a statue; the shadows on his face make him resemble a hangman. He is actually alive, because he malevolently smirks and looks down. However, the face breaks like concrete; it sonorously crumbles and reveals that he was empty inside. From the inner cavity the ape emerges.