i'm pleased that i waited until now to discuss bambi i have been discussing disney films on this
channel for 11 years now and for whatever reason i just never talked about bambi i think the main
reason is that i find it really hard to watch and it's very really upsetting usually when i'm
reviewing a film i like to watch it or re-watch it zombie not so much because it's very emotional
but the history behind it is something that i find so fascinating in the reception at the time
so i thought i'd talk about it it's not really a review i'm not going to pick
apart too much of it i just want to share some basic thoughts that i have about it and invite
any other commentary but i will say it is the most emotional disney film i am trying to think of the
top of my head of one that is more emotional and i can't maybe fox in the hound but bambi absolutely
it reminds me of this the episode of friends where chandler talks about what he sarcastically says
that he didn't get upset when the the cartoonist stopped drawing the mother deer and in a way that
is exactly what happened but at the same time it's something that everybody can relate to everybody
has somebody who was in their lives and then stops being their lives for one reason or another
but for the young child watching it it is traumatic i am pussyfooting around what
i'm talking about because i don't want to give any spoilers but i'm assuming that if
you're listening to this you've seen this and you're aware of what happens to bambi's mother
that for me the build-up to that point is fun it's cute i love it when bambi meets flower
and i just you can call me flower if you want to and then thumper thumper my goodness
thumpers lines eating greens is a special treat it makes long ears and great big feet but it sure is
nasty stuff to eat absolutely love it the image of him hovering his mouth over one of the purple
what looks like a thistle but i'm not sure what it is hope it's not a thistle for his sake perfect
it's fun for a girl or a boy he it's a it's a boy um is one of the most iconic disney scenes
for me and up until that point it's beautiful it's fabulous and then the unseen predator
the antagonist that is man gets in the way and rips everything about this animation to shreds
and turns a beautiful journey about a tiny little deer into a very tragic story
of a young boy without a mother who must one day step into the position of the great
prince of the forest and he has to grow up very quickly and it's quite depressing
and even just thinking about it it's kind of choking me up a bit i genuinely cannot watch
this film um the beginning [ __ ] yes but when things turn nasty i i cannot i struggle with a lot
for me it's one of the most dramatic shifts in a disney film obviously most disney films will
reach a point where things will go from being all happy and free to being a bit darker and
having a more serious message but for me this is the most dramatic shift and it's so powerful
the way things just flip and you don't expect it the first time you watch it and i don't remember
the first time i watched it but i'm assuming just kind of analyzing the way the narrative progresses
as a young child watching this until that music changes and it's screeching and i
believe it's strings um i could be wrong but i think it's the strings are screeching and
howling and everything's foreboding and terrifying bearing the mind
bambi was just playing among the bright coloured flowers with a skunk and a rabbit
and now everything he knows is in danger and everything is dark and terrifying now
and it becomes a completely different film and it's rare that that happens
and it's rare that that happens successfully and i'm still getting choked up thinking about it
honestly i can't watch animal films that are sad
even when the animator stopped drawing the mother deer i i think it's fantastic it's one of disney's
strongest emotive films it wasn't that well received at the time because it didn't kind
of have that fantasy element pretty much every disney film until this point had some kind of
element of the fantastical even something like snow white there's the magic element
to it this one was very much realistic and obviously that's not what disney were known for
but now now it's definitely one of their most popular well-received and dramatic in terms of
the music in terms of the songs only little april shower sticks out for me the rest of them are just
things that don't stick with me um if you haven't seen the sequel check it out bambi 2 is actually
really sweet and definitely not as scary
um bambi is set at some point in the middle of the first film
before after the tragic incident but before he grows up which is interesting because we don't
know too much about what happened to him in that time in his life it is interesting
uh but definitely give it a watch if you like bambi as a character this is an adorable film very
well animated very well illustrated beautifully told as a narrative the timing the pacing it's
all fantastic the music is atmospheric it hits every note that it needs to bambi the character
is adorable and very well developed i love thumper but it's definitely hard to watch if for any
reason you haven't seen it watch it but we won't you will cry and i will probably never watch this
film all the way through ever again despite that it's one of the strongest disney films