It is baffling that I am now responsible for a six-year-old, because I can still remember being six. It's one of those realizations that makes me feel old. Especially given that I had many of the same interests as the kid I babysit. For example, his two biggest interests of the moment are Pokemon and Star Wars, both staples of my childhood. Well, such is life.
The reason I have chosen to share this revelation about growing up is that it couldn't be a more suitable opening to a movie like Bambi. So much of what happens in childhood goes completely over our heads. Take the use of "pig latin" in Lion King. Definitely didn't catch that until my early adulthood. What I'm trying to say is that we can watch and seemingly understand a movie, only to go back years later and discover a completely new meaning. Some of the discovery may be due in part to memory loss (we can't remember everything), but I think that a great deal of it comes with life experience. Watching Bambi this morning I learned that it's a vignette about the cycle of life, when at age six it was just a movie about a fawn becoming a deer. Maybe those two understandings don't sound so different. My current appraisal might just be a more collegiate-sounding version of what my six-year-old-self thought Bambi was about, after all.
Nevertheless, at six, movies always seemed to have a clear and concise plot. Yet having the opportunity to look back on a movie like Bambi, I am surprised at how the story feels more like a collection of excerpts from Bambi's life than it does a narrative. At every step Bambi is, yes, growing up and learning, but what happens in one scene doesn't always drive the action toward the next. Because of this, we are able to see more intimate scenes that express the nature of life rather than those that drive the plot. So, we end up with scenes like the one where Bambi experiences his first thunderstorm accompanied by the song "Little April Shower." I might add that as an April baby, I was endeared to this song. The scene doesn't set up any future action, it just shows that Bambi is learning about his environment. There are many other such scenes and for the most part they are the film.
The beauty (literally) of having scenes that represent little slices of life is that the animators are able to create audience understanding primarily through spectacular visuals. From the close up shots that allow the audience to experience intimate moments between young Bambi and his mother to distant shots of the forest as it is swallowed by wildfire, the animators really find a way to make each moment beautiful. Some scenes are created using pale colors and soft focus, recalling the naivete of youth and the mere simplicity of it all. Others are vivid and striking, showing the more harsh reality of life in the wild like forest fires. I have to point out the scene wherein Bambi is fighting another deer for the affection of Faline, because it's incredibly intense, yet done in a way that is still feels graceful and authentic to nature.
Going back to the forest fire, it's worth mentioning that somewhat similar to Dumbo, this film doesn't really have a villain. Well, kind of. Whereas Dumbo is overcoming societal perceptions rather than a villain, Bambi and his friends are overcoming an unseen enemy, man. The audience is never directly shown the poachers who lurk about the forest, but their presence is felt. It's present in the sound of the gunshots, the fear, and the damage that they bring to the forest. But what these two films do differently than most contemporary Disney films, is that they create broad antagonists. Any man could be a threat to the forest, much in the way that anyone who laughs at Dumbo causes him to feel rejected.
Of course, Bambi does offer a broad array of characters in addition to its landscapes. There's his comedic sidekick Thumper, who is equally rambunctious and outspoken (these days we'd say he has no filter). Frankly, he's about as charming and perfect as sidekicks come, joining the ranks of characters like Finding Nemo's Dori and Cinderlla's Gus and Jack. I feel almost bad that I had forgotten his charm after all these years. A nice touch I thought was that Flowers the skunk and his future mate, too, were obsessed with flowers. Bambi's mother is tragically perfect: patient, kind, and self-sacrificing. This makes her (off screen) death by poachers all the more heart-wrenching. Finally, perhaps the most intriguing character is the Great Prince of the Forest, Bambi's father.
In most Disney movies, the hero/heroine/ingenue is missing one parent, yet for nearly half of Bambi this isn't really the case. He has two living parents, though his father is a stranger to him, because as the Great Prince he must guard over all of the forest, which apparently means he has no role in Bambi's life. I'm not positive, but the absence of a father figure does seem realistic and true to life, making the whole situation feel more real. Upon the death of Bambi's mother, the Great Prince does come to Bambi to inform him that his mother can no longer be with him, presumably taking him home. What happens next, no one can be quite sure, because there's a flash forward to Bambi's first spring as a full-grown deer. Sidebar: the flash forward was a tad jarring as I might have preferred just one scene about young Bambi after his mother died. In a couple of later scenes, we see Bambi with the Great Prince and can assume that there has been some training taking place between the two over the years, but again there's no concrete sense of this. So, all in all, I am surprised in a sense that Disney did not try to develop more of a connection between Bambi and his father. Then again, it may just be my more modern understanding of Disney movies that leads me to believe as much. In any case, I just wanted to highlight what I found to be an intriguing character/situation.
As you have probably guessed, all in all, I loved this movie. There's a lot to like and a lot that charmed me. There's something very nostalgic about watching Bambi grow up and eventually take his father's place as the Great Prince.
It may be that as a film Bambi succeeds because it can be enjoyed by children and adults for completely different reasons. Children are reeled in by the inherent comedy of watching Bambi and his friends go through life and eventually growing up. Adults on the other hand can look back on their youth and relate, relate to how life is an unpredictable, ongoing cycle.
Next week is a big unknown for me with Saludos Amigos, as it is the first movie that I haven't seen on my list. As far as I can remember that is.
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