Dumbo and Bambi

Continuing my writing on Disney films that I took a break from well over a year ago.



I half love and half hate this movie.

On the one hand this movie beautifully conveys the love a mother has for her son. Mrs. Jumbo immediately embraces her son for who he his. It doesn't matter to her for one second that he has over large ears. What does matter to her is how horribly her son is treated by everyone else.

What makes no sense to me is the fact that over five minutes of screen time and a whole musical number is devoted to Dumbo and Timothy Q. Mouse "seeing pink elephants" and the fact that Dumbo learns to fly is an after thought of the last two minutes of the movie.

I mean the movie is already pretty short. Why spend over five minutes of the film on what could arguably be the least important part of it? And then why only mention Dumbo learns to fly right at the very end? Growing up the fact that Dumbo could fly was one of the few things I even remembered about the movie. They have a ride at Disneyland about it. But in the film it's not really treated like a big plot point.

My rating of the film:6/10



Moving on to Bambi. The truth is I really don't have too much to say about this one. I enjoy the animation. Disney actually reuses the animation from Bambi in a lot of his other films. The music is fine. Nothing too memorable actually. The characters are cute. I mean baby deer, bunnies, birds and even skunks are pretty damn precious.

But the story frankly is kind of a snooze. Baby deer is born. He makes friends. His mother dies. He grows up. He has his own baby deer. And that is pretty much it. Everyone always references this movie as being monumentally sad as well. And sure it was sad. But maybe I just expect more tragedy now to really have an effect. I mean when I saw Coco the other day I bawled my eyes out. But with Bambi? Not so much.

My rating of the film: 6/10

Films in order of preference so far:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Bambi
Dumbo
Pinocchio
Fantasia