There was the 60’s, and there has been an interminable “now”
that started sometime in the late 70’s and will apparently last until the
oceans rise enough to wipe out any memory of Justin Bieber, Twitter and energy
drinks. But for a very short historical moment in the early to mid 70’s
Hollywood made a kind of last-ditch effort to hold on to some sort of
originality and idealism. Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards, which was
released two weeks before Star Wars in 1977, is one of the last
great examples of that beautiful childish idealism. Being that director Ralph
Bakshi is the guy who created the edgy animated films Fritz The Cat,
Heavy Traffic and Coonskin, it is a childishness cut with
gritty realities, sexy heroines and a real sense of moral outrage and
philosophical clarity.
Wizards takes place in the distant future, when a
post-nuclear apocalypse has returned the Earth to a more primitive state, and
divided people into the good - represented by conventionally drawn, cute, round
fairies and elves - and the evil - mutants, goons and all sorts of
bio-mechanoid beasties who carry weapons, dressing and behaving like Nazis. In
fact the evil leader, Blackwolf, has dug up all sorts of buried badness from
the past. Most importantly, he has stumbled upon a movie projector and footage
of Adolph Hitler and the blitzkrieg and has used it to not only bring his
mutant hordes together as an army, but also to terrify and ultimately defeat
and enslave the elves. He is determined to rule what is left of the world.
Conversely, his brother, Avatar, is an old-school, cigar chomping, boozing,
lusty old wizard who is all things good but would rather be left alone to spend
his retirement among the succulent female fairies. OK, enough about the
specifics of the story, because they can make Wizards sound like a
conventional family, fantasy film. And it is certainly not that. It is
enjoyable for both kids and adults to watch, but at the heart of this unique
animated work is a dead-serious polemic about the dangers of technology and how
easily it can be used by the dark side.
Using the Nazi
imagery makes for a very understandable antagonist, and casting Avatar and the
elves as long-haired, lusty earth children lends a post-60’s wistfulness to
their plight. The story rolls through journeys and battles that bring about a
redemptive and enjoyable resolution, but the real focus of Wizards is
the constantly unexpected and innovative animating techniques employed by the
fearless director Ralph Bakshi. Combining his years of conventional training at
Terry Toons with the psychedelic consciousness of the times and his own
frightening and forward-thinking fear of fascism and over-reliance on
technology, he creates a universe where, McLuhan-like, “the medium is the message.” It is in the very swirling, mixed-media originality of his
animation techniques that Bakshi most eloquently makes his case. When
contrasting a kaleidoscopic freak-show of drooling, skeleton nazi monsters and
stock footage of Hitler’s minions goose-stepping their way to hellish infamy
with a pastoral animated world of busty hippie chicks flying around a “Garden
Of Eden” on gossamer wings, one didn’t need to be a genius or on LSD to make
the right choice.
It is because Wizards
is so clearly directed, and that the groundbreaking animation techniques are so
vivid and so powerfully reinforce the moral tone of the script that it has lost
none of its greatness in the almost 40 years since its release. It feels as
fresh and fun as the first time I saw it, and it has lost none of its punch.
- Paul Epstein
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