Bambi (1942)

Hearkening back to the lush backgrounds and detailed animations of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio, Walt Disney and his crew of animators take audiences into the beauty of the great outdoors for their fifth full-length feature. With a trio of lovable characters, playful music and the innocence of nature, Bambi caps off Disney’s early years with one last triumph.

It’s important to note that after the release of Bambi, Walt Disney lost a fair portion of his animators to work for the US government during World War II creating pro-Ally films. During the war years and the rest of the 1940s Disney animated films were noticeably different in substance and style. In some ways, this makes Bambi something of a last hurrah from the Disney dream team, though they weren’t aware of their impending break up at the time.

This film is remarkable for its attention to detail in the movements of its animal characters. Disney pulled out all the stops to get his animators in front of live deer in order to help the anthropomorphic lead retain realistic movement. Great attention was paid to the flora of Bambi’s world as well. Photographs from the forests of the northeast US helped ensure that the textures and color pallets of the great outdoors were replicated as much as possible. The education instilled during research and development would help Walt Disney animated films for years to come and helped secure them as leaders of the animated film medium even through their hardest times.

Another great success of Bambi is how trim the story is. Even though it is longer than Dumbo, it doesn’t get sidetracked into musical numbers that look good but slow the story down. The pacing is set just right as Bambi learns the ways of the forest from his mother and grows into adolescence and adulthood. He meets fun new friends in Thumper and Flower and even finds himself captivated with a playful doe.

The innocence of Bambi and the forest he lives in does not last for long though. Man enters the picture, the ultimate antagonist to nature. While Man’s role as the enemy of the forest is a bit exaggerated it’s not anywhere near overdone to the point of pulling you out of the story. I myself am pro-hunting but Bambi is hardly an anti-hunting film. It is a tale of lost innocence told through the eyes of an animal. Nature itself is not a sufficient antagonist so Man has to step in to shake things up a bit.

Bambi is a terrific film for all ages. Children can laugh and bounce along with Bambi and his friends while older viewers can marvel at the rich animation and attention to detail. It’s beautiful both in animation and in the story it tells. Important life lessons are imparted upon its characters that are easy for children to understand. It’s not preachy, oversimplified or kiddish.

Bambi is a step up from Dumbo but it doesn’t quite reach the heights achieved by Snow White or Pinocchio. All the same, it is a wonderful film that is worth seeing again and again.

RATING: 4 out of 5