You've gotta give it to Disney, especially in the classic years: they weren't ones to rest on their laurels. Even today, Bambi feels like a major risk. You've already established a reputation for high-quality fairy tale adaptations, so where does a calm, quiet, feature-length deliberation on everyday animal life fit in? They went for it anyway, no doubt conscious of Fantasia's then-recent commercial failure, and they pulled it off. In retrospect, both films are widely acknowledged as ambitious, timeless creative triumphs. So, the lesson is, don't worry about the now; just make work that makes you proud, and eventually society will catch on.

Bambi is an obvious labor of love, from the careful document of reclusive forest wildlife to the gradual, almost cautious, plot development. It's sweeter than a sack of saccharine, a sugar rush of adorable young furballs with charming children's voices, singing songs and learning about the world, but also sober and profound. Of course, everyone remembers the crucial childhood's-end scene involving Bambi's mother, but his later, adolescent encounters with a rival buck and a roving gang of hunting dogs are equally powerful, with similarly harsh (but fair) lessons to teach us all.

It may not be as flashy, nor as instantly gratifying, as the studio's biggest features, but I found Bambi a much more resonant, almost philosophical experience. It focuses on a community of big-eyed, impossibly cute talking animals, sure, but it's about so much more than easy feelings and simple superficiality.