‘BAMBI’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Life in the Forest with Bambi and his Friends
For my sister Bethan
This is a beautifully-made Disney film that I loved watching when I was as a kid.
I used to watch a lot of Disney films as a kid back in the 1990s. My sister Bethan also used to watch Disney films as a kid before she passed away at 6 years old. They included ‘Peter Pan’, ‘Pete’s Dragon’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’. ‘Bambi’ is another lovely Disney film that my sister Bethan loved to watch.
From what my parents told me, Bethan loved seeing this film when it was re-released at a cinema in Cardiff. I’m sure I must have seen ‘Bambi’ when it was re-released at a cinema too, along with ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ and ‘The Jungle Book’. Those were the days of good Disney re-releases.
I recall seeing ‘Bambi’ on VHS when my parents purchased it for us to watch as a family. Now it has been re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in various editions. The DVD edition that my parents and I currently have is the 2-disc Special Edition DVD. This has the film on Disc 1 and special features on Disc 2.
‘Bambi’ is a very special film in the Disney legacy. It was the fifth Disney film made following ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, ‘Pinocchio’, ‘Fantasia’ and ‘Dumbo’. ‘Bambi’ wasn’t well-received when it was released at cinemas in 1942. Nowadays, it’s regarded as a Disney classic and rightly so. 🙂
The story focuses on the life of Bambi, who grows up from a young deer fawn to a young adult deer. Bambi is the new-born prince of the forest. Through his life, he experiences what the world is like, as he interacts with his mother, his friends and his father, known as the Great Prince of the Forest.
‘Bambi’ is based on the 1923 book called ‘Bambi, A Life in the Woods’ by Felix Salten. I’m not very familiar with the original book; although I’m sure I read a picture book based on it. But Walt Disney and his team made the conscious decision to have the film not follow exactly like the book and to be loosely based on it.
What I found remarkable about ‘Bambi’ as a Disney film is that it doesn’t heavily rely on dialogue. The characters do speak and there are some amusingly comedic moments. But the film tends to rely on drama and imagery when focusing on life in the forest, and the film’s music assists that very well.
As a kid, I was immersed into the world of Bambi, wanting to see what the little deer fawn was up to when interacting with his friends. At first, Bambi is innocent when he’s born and when he sees things that he hasn’t encountered before. He’s so intrigued and fascinated by them with child-like wonder.
That scene where Bambi sees birds for the first time and he tries to say the word ‘bird’ for the first time is a wonderful example. It was funny how his friend Thumper the rabbit tried to help Bambi say the word ‘bird’ and he keeps saying ‘bir’ before eventually saying ‘bird’ in the movie. It’s a very good scene.
There’s a lot of beauty featured in this film. This is featured in the animation of the forest and how the wild animals behave in the film. It’s clear that the Disney animation team put a lot of research into studying the animals of the wild forest such as the deers, rabbits and skunks to make them so believable.
On a side note, I recall enjoying a ‘Bambi’ read-a-long cassette tape where the story was told to children. I loved the cassette tape very much, as it put me in mind of the film and the characters’ voices. Even from watching the film again on DVD, I’m enchanted by the story’s beauty and the characters.
There’s not exactly a big enemy in this film, although it’s made clear that the enemy to the animals of the forest is ‘man’. The film never shows humankind and it’s pretty scary when we have an unseen enemy. Even for me, I can emphasise with the animals getting afraid of men attacking them.
Bambi of course is the main star of the film. I liked seeing him as a little deer fawn as he grows up. I didn’t like it when he became all grown-up in the film’s second half, but I’ve become appreciative of that aspect of the story nowadays. As a kid, seeing Bambi as a little deer fawn was exciting to me.
As well as Bambi getting curious about birds and trying to say ‘bird’, it’s also amusing when he gets to learn new words and things such as butterflies and flowers. He makes friends with Thumper and Flower to help him understand these things and his relationship with his mother is very strong and sweet. 🙂
Speaking about the mother, it’s argued she didn’t provide much to the film as a character. But I would argue she provided the protection Bambi needed when he was vulnerable, especially when they visited ‘the meadow’ for the first time. She also warns Bambi of the dangers of ‘man’ present in the forest.
Of course, the shocking moment of ‘Bambi’ as a film happens when the mother gets killed by ‘men’. That is something I’m sure would have upset a lot of kids who watched this film back in 1942. It upset me when I saw Bambi without his mother in that moment, as it’s a brave thing for a Disney film to do.
Incidentally, I’ve noticed how this film goes through the seasons of the year. It starts off with being in spring, going into summer, going into autumn and then going into winter before it goes right back to spring again. It’s a lovely theme the film has, as Bambi experiences life and going through the seasons.
Bambi’s friends are other wild animals, including Thumper, a pink-nosed rabbit. I love Thumper the rabbit. He’s very funny, especially with his thumping feet and meeting up with Bambi to show him new wonders. That scene where Bambi experiences snow for the first time with Thumper was so funny.
I enjoyed it when Bambi and Thumper went on the ice rink together. Bambi has trouble trying to get his four legs up onto the ice rink, whilst Thumper laughs, amused, before he tries to help him up. Thumper likes saying that Bambi’s ‘kinda wobbly’ and it was amusing when Thumper got told off by his mama.
Another friend of Bambi’s is Flower the skunk. Although I don’t think that is his real name, since Bambi called him ‘Flower’ after he mistook him for one! 😀 Thumper laughs away, whilst Flower doesn’t mind being called that. I wonder whether Flower had a mother or a father in the forest here.
It was amusing and interesting to see Flower hibernating when Bambi and Thumper came across him during winter. Flower just seems to be by himself and doesn’t have his family with him. Or maybe he does, but they’re hidden away in the tree that he’s in. I wonder how skunks can sleep for so long during the winter.
Bambi also meets his childhood friend and sweetheart, Faline, a young female deer. Faline is rather cheeky and giggly when Bambi meets her. Bambi, who has never seen a young female deer like him before, is very afraid of her. It was pretty funny when the two as kids eventually chased each other.
In his young adult life, Bambi meets Faline again and becomes ‘twitterpated’ with her in a romantic way. 😀 This is the same for Thumper and Flower, who also get ‘twitterpated’ with partners. And rather easily! I wish that can happen in real life where I get ‘twitterpated’ with a pretty young girl. 😀
There’s also Bambi’s father, the Great Prince of the Forest. He doesn’t say much when Bambi first sees him in the meadow as a child. He can seem scary, but Bambi’s father is a very wise deer and quite protective of him as well as his mother. He even looks after Bambi after his mother is tragically killed.
In his adult life, Bambi has more scenes with his father, especially when they discover that ‘man’ has returned to the forest. Bambi’s father encourages him to ‘get up’ after getting shot by ‘man’. Bambi and his father soon run away from the burning forest that makes for a pretty dramatic climax in the film.
Another character in this film is Friend Owl. He’s very funny when he tries to get some sleep in his tree hole, but he gets interrupted. He’s also friendly towards Bambi when seeing him as a newly-born fawn and a young adult deer. Friend Owl does warn Bambi, Thumper and Flower about ‘twitterpating’. 😀
As I said before, ‘Bambi’ has some beautiful artistic imagery when depicting the forest as well as some beautiful music. The songs featured in the film include ‘Love is a Song’, ‘Little April Shower’ and ‘I Bring You A Song’. ‘Love is a Song’ won an Academy Award for Best Song after its release at cinemas. 🙂
The DVD special features are as follows. On Disc 1, there’s ‘Bambi: Inside Walt’s Story Meetings’, which features dramatised conversations between Walt Disney and the writing team. I was amazed to see Patrick Stewart of ‘Star Trek’ fame giving the introduction. 😀 There’s also a Disc 2 preview on Disc 1.
On Disc 2, there are two deleted scenes that were never shown in the movie. There are also ‘Games and Activities’, including ‘The Forest Adventure’, ‘DisneyPedia: Bambi’s Forest Friends’, ‘What’s Your Season?: Personality Profile’, ‘Disney’s Storytime: Thumper Goes Exploring’ and the ‘Virtual Forest’. There’s also ‘Backstage Disney’, which includes ‘The Making of Bambi: A Prince Is Born’, ‘Restoring Bambi’, ‘The Legacy Continues: A Sneak Peak at the All-New ‘Bambi’ Movie’ (which is ‘Bambi II’), ‘Disney Time Capsule: 1942: The Year of Bambi’ and ‘The Art of Bambi’. There’s also an excerpt from ‘Tricks of the Trade’, ‘Inside the Disney Archives’, ‘The Old Mill’ animated short and the original 1942 theatrical trailer for the movie.
I love ‘Bambi’ as a Disney film and it means a lot to me when I watched it as a kid. This film predates what ‘The Lion King’ did later on with its ‘circle of life’. ‘Bambi’ is a similar tale about the ‘circle of life’, except it’s in a forest. And it has a calm beauty and honesty about it through its forest imagery and its music.
I like how Bambi’s life from a young deer fawn into a young adult male gets developed in the film and how he experiences life through his family and friends. It’s a timeless classic that should never be forgotten. I’m very pleased to have seen it again on DVD lately to remember my sister Bethan.
‘Bambi’ rating – 9/10
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