Bambi

Walt Disney Animation Studio’s Bambi (1943) is one of the most visually striking and emotionally resonant and endearing animated features that the studio has ever produced. From the realistic animal animation and vivid, impressionistic backgrounds to the coming-of-age story at its centre, Bambi changed the way the studio approached animation and established one of its signature looks.

Walt Disney famously brought two fawns (baby deer) into the studio to help his animators create realistic illustrations. To get the attitudes and movements of animals in the wild right, he filmed hours of footage for the animators, and even had them study animal anatomy. But the cheerful faces of Bambi, Thumper and Flower were designed by an animator studying the expressions of human babies. When he translated those looks onto the drawings of animals, the adorable and expressive animal faces that have been the hallmark of the Studio’s subsequent films was born. The early concept sketch featured above is one of the earliest examples of this type of animation, and shows Bambi meeting his future friend Flower.

Friendship and love are at the heart of Bambi, which follows the princely deer from birth to adolescence and adulthood, with the trials and hardships of life also never overlooked. Instead, the film teaches audiences how to overcome life’s bitter winters, knowing that spring is always on its way. Apart from containing an ageless wisdom, Bambi is also one of the world’s first environmental films, which considers the destructive intrusion of man on nature, but its overarching message of peace, acceptance and harmony shows audiences there’s nothing love can’t conquer.