Silly Symphonies

film 10 of 61

Egyptian Melodies

Film Review by Dean Duncan Jul 6, 2015

The best thing here comes right at the start. It’s the delightful, even joyful tracking shot that follows the spider down into the depths below the pyramid. There’s lot of dancing and experimental animation down there, though it never quite catches up with that auspicious open. There’s a mummy dance that’s quite reminiscent of the skeleton dance, from the very first Silly Symphony. Quite quite reminiscent.

There’s also a fantastic bit with a bunch of flat images playing across a number of flat surfaces. I think they surveyed the whole history of image projection, which is pretty great. At one point they accelerate and multiply, adding some contrary notion and tilts and vertiginous shift. More than pretty great!