Um . . . okay, so I watched Bambi (1942).  Why did I do so?  Because it is barely over an hour long and I wanted to fit it in with a night of watch the National Hockey League’s (NHL) draft.  My Chicago Blackhawks had the privilege of drafting Conor Bedard, who seems destined to be next legend of the ice, and I wanted to bask in the glory.  It will be interesting to read this review a few years from now, regardless of how Bedard turns out as a player.  What did you do the night Bedard was drafted?  Well, I watched Bambi.

Viewing Bambi on the same night as your favorite hockey team brings in what many are touting to be a generational talent does seem out of phase.  So far, so obvious.  What is less so is the plot of this Disney classic.  I am not sure it has one.  It essentially begins where it ends.  Bambi’s mother (voiced by Paula Winslowe) gives birth to the title character (voiced by Bobby Stewart, Donnie Dunagan, Hardie Albright, and John Sutherland as, respectively, baby, young, adolescent, and young adult Bambi).  In whatever universe in which this takes place, this makes Bambi the prince of the forest.  His father (voiced by Fred Shields) is the Great Prince of the Forest, the inclusion of the word “Great” meaning that he has the largest rack.  Ahem, this means antlers.  Anyway, dad is off doing his own thing, leaving mother and Bambi to frolic on their own.  Bambi spends about two thirds of the movie interacting with a few animal friends. Everything is hunky-dory until, in the middle of winter, Bambi and mom attempt to flee some hunters.  The fawn is able to escape, but mom bites the bullet.  This news is confirmed by dad, who breaks the bad news to the son he sees a few times a year.  Bambi sheds a tear before following the Great Prince deeper into the forest, trying to find a place away from human encroachment.  Time passes, as it does, and which appears to be the only real theme in the film.  We next see out title character with horns, and he goes back to where he had been raised.  There he meets the slightly older rabbit Thumper (voiced by Peter Behn, Tim Davis, and Sam Edwards as, respectively, young, adolescent, and young adult Thumper) and a skunk ironically named Flower (voiced by Stan Alexander, Tim Davis, and Sterling Holloway as, respectively, young, adolescent, and young adult Flower).  With them all collected together again, Friend Owl (voiced by Will Wright) offers some solicited advice.  Seeing them on the verge of being fully grown, the bird of prey tells the animals (two of which he would be more apt to eat, but this is Disney) that they will soon fall in love.  They all dismiss it, promising it will never happen to them.  Yet, starting with Flower, they each find a mate and instantly forget about any previously made declarations.  Bambi is last, meeting Faline (voiced by Cammie King and Ann Gillis as, respectively, young and young adult Faline), a young doe Bambi knew as a fawn.  Sparks instantly fly, particularly when he uses his budding horns to fend off from Faline a would-be suiter.  Yet, before they can get too comfortable, Dad comes around for his annual visit and shows his son how close are the human settlements.  It is not long before unseen hunters are rampaging through nature, shooting everything that moves.  Dad says flee but Bambi goes back for Faline.  He finds her cornered by dogs, and once more has to come to her rescue.  The danger does not pass, though, for upon being reunited, a large forest fire breaks and all the other creatures must take shelter.  Faline gets away but Lesser(?) and Great Prince have to do some maneuvering on their own.  At any rate, it all adds up to Bambi and Faline being reunited, and the whole cycle starting over, this time with two new fawns.

I am not sure how, in some pretty key ways, Bambi and The Lion King (1994) are any different.  Okay, there are some differences.  There is no evil sister for Bambi’s mother plotting against her sibling to take over the throne, but Bambi is pretty much the same movie to me.  The clincher is the “circle of life.”  Both of them essentially end where they begin, and the argument can be made that this is in keeping with God’s design.  When Bambi’s mother dies, which happens “off camera,” I was reminded of John 12:24.  In this passage, Jesus says “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”  Now, we are talking about nature here, and likely Bambi would have found his match regardless of what happens to his mother.  Still, faith is an act, not something that happens to you.  Bambi’s mother sacrificed herself so that her offspring might live.  The fruit of this is the two fawns you see at the end of the film.

And, literally, that is all of Bambi.  You are born, you grow up, you find a calling, and then you die.  And repeat.  My suspicion is that the reason this film exists was to give Disney’s animators something to do instead of fighting in World War II.  The art work is pretty stunning, for 1942, and I believe I saw in a separate documentary that those directly responsible for the drawings spent a great deal of time observing live deer.  So, hooray for that, I guess.  At any rate, if you want to look at the pretty pictures, then go ahead.  I do not totally understand the relationships that form in this movie, but again, it is Disney.  There is not usually too much that they do that is objectionable.