Bambi, the story of a life in the woods: 5 things to know about the film

How many fawns to play Bambi? Which star does the voiceover? Where do animals come from? Etc.

Bambi, the story of a life in the woods was released this Wednesday, October 16 in French theaters: the story, to the rhythm of the four seasons, of a little fawn in nature… Do you think you know Bambi? Here are five facts about the film which reinvents one of the great cultural myths of the century.

The director wrote The Emperor's March
Co-writer of Ridiculous by Patrice Leconte, Michael Fessler also collaborated on the scripts for Little Nicolas: What are we waiting for to be happythe docu-animated on the character of Sempé and Goscinny released in 2022. And above all The Emperor's Marchr, the event film by Luc Jacquet, one of the hits of 2005 which poetically recounted the life of a family of penguins in the ice. “The adventure of the Emperor's March was an emotional event in French cinema”remembered the director at the microphone of Europe 1. “The memory of the film made me want to work again in a gentle, caring world, and that is the world of Bambi.”

The voiceover is by Mylène Farmer
You can hear it in the trailer: it's Mylène Farmer who recites the commentary of Bambi, the story of a life in the woods. The singer is also an actress (we saw her in the horror film Ghostland by Pascal Laugier, for example), but why did you choose her, apart from the obvious qualities of her voice and her phrasing? “The producers remembered that Mylène had spoken about Bambi with a lot of emotion in an interview”explains Michel Fessler to Europe 1. Contacted, the artist said yes straight away: “it’s his favorite animal, his emotional totem”Fessler said.

It's adapted from a novel
Before passing into legend in the form of an animated film that no longer needs to be presented, Bambi is a novel by the Austrian author Felix Salten published in 1923. This is the spirit of this “original story” that Michel Fessler wanted to capture: “it's a tale, it's a novel, it's a bit of both. It was very moving to adapt…. Bambi is known all over the world, it's an international brand… it was a lot of emotion.”

Mother's death is suggested
The cinematic trauma of the animated film – the death of Bambi's mother from a hunter's bullet – is softened in Bambi, the story of a life in the woods. “I did not deal with the death of the mother but rather her disappearance: there is a distant gunshot, and that’s it”describes the director. “Everyone can feel something. I leave everything open. It's up to everyone to find out what it is.”

Three different fawns played Bambi
To be able to capture Bambi during his first year of life, the film team had to cheat by filming different animals within the Animal Contact Park, in the Loiret, where the animals live in a sort of semi-liberty, as the describes Michel Fessler. “It's a park but without wild animals: the animals are part of this park. They are not afraid of man, they are very close to us. The forest where we filmed is their playground. scenario was built from their behavior We had absolute freedom, and the grace of the film comes from the discretion of the camera. Sixteen weeks of filming were necessary to produce the film.