Is there a more effeminate sounding name than Bambi? What percent of people out there would know Bambi's gender off the top of their head? It's kind of like the Johnny Cash song "A Boy Named Sue" where the boy is purposely given a girl's name so he could grow up to be tougher. It is kind of fitting sentiment actually in the world of Bambi as living in the wild is something that can't be taken for granted.
Deep in the forest is an animal paradise where Bambi and his friends can frolic peacefully singing kumbaya. That's basically the feeling you get from the first half of the film as we observe a cartoon version of the Animal Planet, minus the predators of course. It has a sort of magical feeling of innocence and purity. This age of innocence would end of course with the killing of Bambi's mother by the omnipresent man. Bambi is ultimately a film about the process of life as we watch Bambi from birth to adulthood and all the steps along the way.
I bet a lot of people don't remember that Bambi and his furry friends grow into adults in the latter part of the film which is surprisingly rich in sexual, errr, romantic energy. It is kind of unsettling to see the cute as a button Thumper with a baby's voice mature into a ladies man that just finished puberty. His trademark foot thumping as he kisses a female rabbit shows off his excitement. Bambi is quite the catch himself as he runs into childhood sweetheart Faline. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of production code in Hollywood during this time? Faline is kind of a slut. She straight up licks Bambi in the face; if a girl did that to you in a bar, well, you know...
For as ominous man is in the film, he does not appear in Bambi at all and I think this was a really wise choice. It's kind of like how you don't see the shark in Jaws until really late into the movie. Man as the villain works better if he remains unseen but always looming. I read an interesting tidbit that said Bambi was the first film to feature a bunch of anthropomorphic animals. So while Bambi may be seen as an anti-man film, it isn't really since all the characters have human like qualities. Perhaps the film is saying that in nature humans are good; it is when we step outside of nature, our nature, that we become corrupted.
As modern animation moves towards CGI, it is a film like Bambi that demonstrates why nothing can beat a good hand drawn picture. The backgrounds in this film look like Thomas Kinkade paintings. I don't know anything about animation but I'm assuming the animators just had a a bunch of pre-painted backgrounds and layered the animation on top of them. Disney has done a great job in transferring their films on Blu-ray as the picture looks pretty stunning. Blu-ray and high definition were pretty much made for animation.
Bambi is a classic Disney film with a timeless story. Who would have thunk a movie about deer would prove to be so magical? It shows that any subject matter can be made meaningful so long as it has a heart that anyone can relate to.
Grade: A-
No comments:
Post a Comment