BAMBI (1942) - ♦♦♦♦♦

Directed by - James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, David Hand, Graham Heid, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Norman Wright

Written by - Perce Pearce, Larry Morey, Vernon Stallings, Melvin Shaw, Carl Falberg, Chuck Couch, Ralph Wright (based on the story by Felix Salten)

Starring - Herbie Albright, Stan Alexander, Bobette Audrey

"Walt Disney would refer to Bambi as "pure gold" and indeed, rightfully so. The legacy of Bambi quite evidently played a huge role in the animation features that would follow, not least of all because of its maturity and his good natured representation of life and coming of age despite its target audience being a young one, and despite its characters being talking animals. 

The film doesn't come across as being driven by a formulaic narrative, and rather excitingly follows the early life of a fawn among the delights and dangers of the forest. The fawn's name is, of course, Bambi, and together with his friends Thumper, a rabbit, and Flower, a skunk, they get into subtle yet meaningful adventures are mostly subtle - aside from memorable landmark ones - but very meaningful nonetheless and particularly successful in achieving a genuine and universal representation of the coming of age process. 

The aforementioned maturity is further shown by an almost complete lack of musical numbers - despite there being a number of memorable tunes, they are not integrated within the actual storyline. The hand drawn animation is quite colourful and spectacular, with great sensibility to to the film's mood changes, even as it goes through its darker moments. The characters themselves are adorable but the whole landscape of the forest itself is also created with great care.

Animation, USA