Don Bluth
Alla ricerca della valle incantata

Don Bluth (El Paso, 1937) had brought prestige to Disney by working on "Robin Hood" (1973) and, especially, "The Rescuers" (1977). Afterwards, since that was the so-called Disney Middle Ages, he decided, along with a large group of followers, to leave Disney's golden world and pursue his activities independently. Naturally, with all the consequent risks, including having to compete commercially with a production house that was in crisis but still a blockbuster.

The common belief is that his best film is "The Secret of NIMH" (1982), a sparse group of thirtysomethings is fond of the questionable "Anastasia" (1997). I, for my part, claim instead that his best film is "The Land Before Time" (1988), a film that unknowingly spawned the beauty of 13 sequels, each worse than the last (none of which feature Don Bluth's work).

The film was produced by the powerful Lucas/Spielberg duo and indeed it was a success. Who knows, it might have been the film that inspired Spielberg himself to create, five years later, the long-seller "Jurassic Park." In fact, the work deals with dinosaurs and searches for a mythicized, yet existing, enchanted valley where brontosaurs, pterodactyls, and various saurians can live in peace and harmony far from natural disasters and fearsome tyrannosaurs.

Lucas and Spielberg demanded and obtained that the more violent edges be softened or even removed, so much so that the film runs just over an hour. What remains is a gentle little work, sometimes a bit cruel (the death of the protagonist's mother), made of good feelings and perfectly fitting secondary characters.

The protagonist, Littlefoot, moves with amusing ease in a fiery red prehistory where friendship and willpower are stronger than any adverse occurrence, and where anyone can rediscover their sense of existence. Life in the form of a growth journey, nothing new, but told with a rare grace fully aware that works destined for a children's audience should remain so without improper contamination. A show of the highest class, at times a bit derivative of the Disney style, but so what, it's still fun.

Anyone born and raised between the '80s and '90s (like myself) will have a memory of the enchanted valley as indelible as it is sweet. The pre-Jurassic Park dinosaurs, less realistic but of infinite sweetness. And it also moves you.