Transcription
As with all art, Destino mounts a story, more so an opus, paying homage to its original creators. What was once a lulled endeavor transformed to be a narrative that resounds the creative genius of both Dali and Disney.
Conceived amid the woes of the late 1940s by surrealist Salvador Dali and Disney Studios' John Hench, Destino was kept on hold due to the impending Second World War and financial troubles that plagued the studio. It lay idle in the archives decades on end, and as destiny would have it (no pun intended), it caught the attention of an intrigued Roy E. Disney, who exhumed the project whilst working on the acclaimed Fantasia 2000.
The project was delegated to the care of Disney's Parisian studios, in which appointed and novice director Dominique Monfrey and a team of inspired animators took to resurrect and decipher the antiqued storyboard relics. Hench and Dali's crude sketches and guidance from Gala Dali's Chronicles breathed new life over Salvador Dali's artistic legacy, seeing him through to the end of this story.
The analysis will examine the film according to German playwright Gustav Freytag's pyramid. It is one of the paradigms of dramatic structure, and the seven-part fabric comprises: Exposition or Introduction, Inciting Incident, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action or Return, Resolution, and Denouement or Revelation.
1. Exposition or Introduction
The establishing scene that follows after the prefacing text presents a landscape scattered with jagged hills. The color scheme is earthly and neutral that when a figure emerges from the distance, it captures the attention of the viewer. If one examines closely, the mass of hill in the forefront has a mound that resembles the shape of a bust. By extension, this can allude to the belief that mankind was made from the Earth.
What emerges from the distance is a woman, seemingly nude and shapely. She comes into view very slowly, almost presenting her like a dream or mirage. The perspective shifts to a triangular statue, sage green in color and adorned in what seemed to be fractures and cracks. There's a pan over the details of the figurine, then the viewer is aware of the perspective of Dahlia, the woman emerging from the distance. A close-up reveals her flawless olive-skinned complexion and her calm visage.
Overall, as she slips into a daydream, out of the darkness, she appears much larger. Behind the statue, she picks it up and brings it close to her chest, supposedly as an embrace. It follows that she has taken the place of the figurine in the original statue. In the background is a crescent moon on spindly falls, reminiscent of one of Dali's symbolisms. He would paint elephants with tall and thin legs to give them a buoyant quality, perhaps you were simulating the moon's levitation in the sky.
In this instance, Dahlia is quickened from the mold, and once she steps out of it, the hands in the clocks by her side catch fire. The flames trail off to her in an attempt to stop her from escaping, which she successfully does. At that point, she transitions into a figure in a futuristic pattern. A progression is noted in phases: twirl of her hair and body, and the gradual expressions on her countenance upon facing the figure. To all appearances, the exposition concludes with the start of a kiss.
2. Inciting Incident
Upon leaning in for a kiss, the figure's face melts, which leaves Dahlia disheartened. In spite of that, she turns around to behold a path that gradually inclines around a large statue. As she treads along, she parades around a variety of smaller figurines that model various positions. They are emerald and coarse, immobilized in the fleeting moment.
At the top of the statue, an eye with an arm protruding from its pupil catches on to her sheer garment, which undresses her. The merriment of the moment comes to a halt when she cowers into recession. Ironically, because she has realized her nudity, she free falls, then lands on telephone receivers again on spindly legs and departs from her vivid reverie with the face of the original statue in focus. Her face that appears disheartened once more. This is probably due to her unfulfilled desire of being with the man in the statue.
In spite of that, the silhouette of a bell in a tower catches her attention, rearing her plan to fulfill her destiny.
3. Rising Action
After taking the shape of the bell, Dahlia's head transforms into a dandelion and sheds white seeds. What follows is the introduction of the man in the statue. It begins with the luminous clock that trickles a golden sand that lands in his hand. The sand, redolent of sand through an hourglass, immediately acts as shackles in an attempt to confine him to the clock.
Struggle for emancipation ensues as the man longs for the dandelion seed. The struggle is completed in segments that display the layers the man was encased in and subsequently had to get through. Liberated and on his knees is Kronos, the Greek mythological personification of time. On his wrist is a melted clock. This was one of Dali's signature peculiarities; distorted clocks were used to represent the fluidity and subjectivity of time, and in the context of Kronos's scuffle, the way that time bears weight on the human experience.
Out of a hole in his palm emerge ants that transform into men on bicycles. Ants were another minuscule detail in Dali's work; they symbolized mortality and overwhelming sexual desire. In this frame of reference, the numerous ant-men symbolize the deep desire.
Kronos returns to Dahlia. The aforementioned dandelion seed becomes Dahlia, and on the plane of Kronos's cracked palm, the two meet. Just as the two move toward each other, they are obstructed by a maze of ruins. Dahlia, who's on lower ground, sends what look to be (and this is an educated guess) flock of Fiji parrot finches that lead Kronos to an aperture where he and Dahlia see each other again.
4. Climax
However, the image Kronos sees becomes an illusion. The image of a man, and so he walks through the opening and takes on the features of the illusory man. A medium close-up shot reveals Kronos dressed as a baseball player, and in the background is a baseball bat conveniently placed on the backdrop of genuflect legs. He's caught off guard when two tortoises enter the frame from opposite sides. Their backs are cloth-like figures visibly supported by poles. The one on the left outwardly represents the feminine, probably because the right adorns a mustache, alluding to the masculine. The two halves represent a composite whole, more so when they come together and reveal the shape of a ballerina who has a pearl-like globe for a head. But can be assumed that the ballerina is Dahlia, as it only makes sense by extension. It can be recognized that the baseball player has no significance without a ball, so when the ballerina provides that which gives him significance, the bowl, it shows the intricacy of the relationship and the way it abides in sacrifice.
5. Falling Action or Return
As a result of the events of the climax, the ballerina's head is struck and accelerates through a passage. The passage reveals a full shot that displays Kronos and a billowing white fabric that he takes in for embrace. The fabric is another one of Dahlia's manifestations, and seemingly the only way the two can hold each other in fragments. The fabric appears to be assimilating into his chest. The next full shot reveals the familial scene of the figurine in the sparse landscape.
6. Resolution
The tale is resolved when the frame peers into the gaping hole in the figurine's chest. There, a bell is fixed. Considering the incident in the falling action, it is clear that Kronos and Dahlia are one. She in his chest, exemplifying a heart, that which gives life, and he the holder and protector.
7. Denouement or Revelation
Though they aren't in their anthropomorphic forms, their destinies are fulfilled in that one way or the other, they could be together. This transcends the usual carnality of romance and allows love to be translated into a symbol.
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