Enzo's Mix of Message and Entertainment
Enzo is now an animated feature specialist and after fifteen years with Lanterna Magica he has more than a passing knowledge of animation and -- something of a rarity in the European game -- he is not an animator but rather comes to animation as a director. "I wanted to do Lucky and Zorba, like The Blue Arrow, as a film and no more. It doesn't matter that it's animation, I want, above all, for it to be cinema, that communicates with audiences as cinema does." D'Alò loves story-telling and animation is the best means. While this film is for family audiences, his films are usually a long cry from both noisy special-effects and fussy élitist authors. "I try to use a cinema language but ensure that the pictorial element of the image remains intact. The scenography was done in water-color and that's how I want them to appear. Indeed, for the whole film there's a strong element of children's drawings because the film came from a rhyme told by a poet to his daughter and from the child's imagination. It's a story of cats, real cats even if they can speak. We've tried to make them credible even though they are always and only cats. No glasses on the nose, or paws used as hands. Even the animation has followed this principle -- it's fluid, but never over the top or caricatured. In this way we've been able to get cats that are completely different from the Aristocats, even if it meant driving Walter Cavazzuti, the creator of the characters, mad."

The theme of the film is differences -- the job of hatching a seagull egg falls to Zorba the cat, who adopts the chick and brings it up in a community of cats. Once all obstacles are overcome, Zorba must then teach her to fly. To do so, the characters have to accept their obvious differences and learn to understand the value of differences and their beauty. Enzo explains, "Compared to the original story, I played down the strong ecological theme to play more on the relations between the characters, like the one between the seagull and Pallino, the kitten; their conflicts, including the less obvious ones, that help the growing up process."

However, there is no shortage of spectacular conflicts like the one between the cats and some horrible mice, disgusting creatures who march to a decidedly rock rhythmed song. There are a variety of characters, but the film is about the community of cats, not one, single, classic hero. As Enzo remarks, "I don't really like heroes. Heroism, for me, is overcoming one's own limits, awareness of your own mistakes and creating your own identity. Maybe we are a little `understated' compared to some animation because I wanted to stick to reality, but I liked the idea of choosing the cat's point of view. There are human beings but they work in terms of the cat's world, just like in feline reality. Concerning the stylistic choice, I don't really like special effects. I use them if the film requires, but if not, I don't use them. Our stories don't need special effects. We have used 3D but only to solve complex animation problems." D'Alò did use special animation techniques, however, in three particular parts of the film: in the opening sequence, a dream sequence and for the vision of a dying seagull. Michel Fuzellier, the film's background designer, Mario Addis and Valter Cavazzuti all worked on Enzo's storyboard using their independent free-styles, creating a few intensely imaginative minutes of pure `art' animation. "If it had been a live-action film, I would have used animation, but as things were I used a different and freer form of animation," explains Enzo.

Behind Enzo's modest tones there lies a lot of hard work and strong productive involvement. It seems that Lanterna Magica, Enzo D'Alò and Cecchi Gori have succeeded in delicately creating a balance between style, a strong message and entertainment. Both European and Italian animation is eagerly waiting to see how high the Seagull will fly.

Translated from Italian by Guy Watts.

Chiara Magri has worked in animation since 1984. She was responsible for the programming of the International Festival of Animated Film of Treviso. Since 1993 she has been teaching a course in animated film history at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin. Since 1989 she has edited and published the monthly ASIFA newsletter, the only specialized publication on animation in Italy. She is secretary general of ASIFA Italy. In 1997 she carried out an in-depth survey on the production sector of animation in Italy for RAI, the Italian national broadcaster.