The Tune

Celebrated cartoonist Bill Plympton's first feature film is a surreal musical fantasy with some inspired animation. He financed it entirely by himself, raising extra money by doing work for a few television commercials (see "Plymptoons: Complete Works" on DVD). He also released early portions of the film as shorts to help generate funds ("Dig My Do" in 1990, "Push Comes To Shove" and "The Wiseman" in 1991), even winning the 1991 Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival for "Push Comes To Shove." Working again with Maureen McElheron (she scored his 1988 Oscar-nominated short "Your Face"), Plympton pieces together the story of a songwriter who, after receiving a 47-minute deadline to deliver a hit song or get fired, finds himself lost in the town of Flooby Nooby. Through the course of ten musical numbers (touching on various popular music genres) and some outstanding animation sequences, he learns to pen songs from the heart rather than by the book. This film is classic Plympton, but the light-hearted theme and often silly songs contrast greatly with the bizarre sex and violence of his second feature-length film "I Married A Strange Person."

I watched this years ago when I must have been twelve or thirteen, and then saw it again when I was about seventeen, and although there was a gap of no more then five years I felt as though the time in-between was far greater. I am now twenty two and recently saw a trailer for this movie and in one frame everything that I loved about the film returned, I can't honestly remember the details of this movie but a few songs and some great images have stayed in my head ever since I saw it the for the first time. I have yet to see it again and to be honest am resisting trying to seek it. It seems strange to say but on the couple of occasions that I watched this movie both times were purely by chance, channel surfing at about two in the morning and on both occasions I was almost reduced to tears by the end (Yes guys do cry as well).

How we view this movie is purely subjective, it is a simple story of a man and his 'tune' but there seems so much to take away from it, it mirrors the French story 'the little prince' in many ways in that to watch it you have to be detached from any sense of realism, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the protagonist and feel what the artist is trying to convey. I'm sure if I rented it now and got all my friends round telling them this was the best movie I ever seen, halfway through it they would ever laugh their ass's off (with good reason) or say it was 'OKAY', I don't want that to happen, this movie has to be seen on your own circumstances to be understood, meaning you have to be taken away by it, The Tune can not be approached as a movie which is objectively a 'great movie', it is for you to decide and enjoy.

I hope for the day when I'm grey and old and this movie will like an old pal appear on the screen and I'm whisked back to my strange teenage years, yes I know it is a totally whimsical view of life, but that is what The Tune means to me, a small insignificant part of my youth, a part which I'm sure will surface to then disapear again countless times through out the years. "Alas this old timer sure does rattle on".

Del is a songwriter for Mr. Mega, and he's trying to write a song his boss will accept. He has a tune, but can't find the words. With a deadline facing him, and anxious to make good so he can marry the boss's secretary Didi, he gets into his car to drive to Mega Corp, but an impossibly complicated cloverleaf sends him on a journey past seemingly hundreds of people performing in a variety of pop styles, from tango to beach movie music, while environment and characters go through transformations.

Enjoying Plympton's cartoons means enjoying his surreal transformations, like Melies' work, but elastic to the point of.... well, cartoonishness. The best sequence is one without any sound, in which two men torment each other like characters in a Laurel & Hardy short as it might have been animated by Teniel. I don't think there's any real point to this movie; Del's quest for a song is an excuse to enjoy these extended gag sequences, and I enjoyed them very much.

The original songs for this movie are amazing, but not nearly as amazing as Plympton's animation. Well worth shutting yourself in to watch, perhaps with other examples of excellence in feature length, independent animation. This ranks with the work of Bakshi, and it's worth supporting animators who don't work for Disney, simply for the fact that their work is not homogenized or dictated by the studio. Plympton gave us this twelve years ago, and we haven't had many animators of note since who could give us a quality product like his. It begs the question, "why not?" I think this film is a must-see for any aspiring animator, to show them that it can be done, and done well.

Del (voiced by Daniel Nieden) is a songwriter searching for inspiration, especially because if he doesn't find any soon, his boss Mr. Mega (voiced by Marty Nelson), of Mega Music, is going to fire him. On his way to the Mega Music office, he takes a wrong turn and ends up in a song-filled land that just might provide a muse.

The most frustrating aspect of The Tune is that it easily has the potential to be a 10. The animation is charming and effective, with absorbing surrealistic touches. Writer/director Bill Plympton (along with writers Maureen McElheron and P.C. Vey) has a knack for crafting a disarmingly simple but twisted fantasy tale. However, my initial enthusiasm was brought down a few notches by the songs. And as this is basically an animated musical, if there is a problem with the music, it seriously affects the film.

It's not that the music is bad, although some of the recordings of music are bad from an engineering perspective. Rather, for a work that's otherwise so imaginative--visually and plot-wise--the music and most of the lyrics are boilerplate. The music is like a survey of generic, older pop styles (tin pan alley jazz, 70s country, rockabilly, blues, and so on). It reminded me of a cross between those "rhythm accompaniment" presets on older Casio keyboards and an audition tape for a cruise ship musician (the latter, because quite a few songs had decent guitar work on top of otherwise formulaic music). When everything else about the film is so creative and rule breaking, I want music that's creative and rule breaking, too. Most of the songs follow the same structural formula, and at their worst, slow the film down because they feel like padding.

Still, Plympton and his animation crew frequently come to the rescue during the songs with excellent visuals--the hotel manager's song and the surf/dance song particularly stand out in my mind. The Tune is definitely worth viewing, and I can't wait to see more of Plympton's work. I would just like to see him paired with a composer who is as inventive aurally as he is visually.

A 7 out of 10 from me.