Bambi 1942
Bambi is one of the classic Disney movies, really the last of the first five classics of Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Dumbo. Snow White and Dumbo made money but the rest lost money initially as the world got involved in war. After Bambi in 1942, it would be 8 years for the next big feature movie, Cinderella in 1950. It is interesting to watch these movies and see the animation make advances. Pinocchio did some amazing things with perspective and Bambi makes a big leap of more realistic looking animals, capturing the anatomy and movement of real animals while stylizing them to get emotion and expression. The backgrounds are also quite good, kind of faded and impressionistic to bring attention to the characters, but still rich. And the music is very well integrated into every footstep and drop of water you see on screen. The story itself is almost a character study except Bambi is mostly just experiencing things rather than developing. Not a really strong narrative, it still definitely tells a story of the circle of life and the extras on the disk point out the similarities to the later Lion King, though even that movie had more of narrative. That unconventional approach to the story, plus the infamous incident, probably made this movie a lot less marketable and so maybe it isn’t that surprising that it didn’t do well at the box office, too horrific for little kids, and too cute for adults. But you have to respect the choice, even though the incident is too traumatic and probably should have been written out, even if it came from the original book. At only 70 minutes, the movie is pretty short, but still drags a little, though it hops quickly through Bambi’s life, quickly enough that the sequel was set in between Bambi being a baby and grown.
Written: 28 Jan 2018
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital