From the floral euphoria of Bambi to outright pastoral terror in The Wicker Man, cinema’s best spring stories are a heady bunch
Spring is emphatically here, albeit in somewhat damp form of late; coinciding with the vaccine drive and an incremental lifting of lockdown restrictions has rarely felt like quite such a restorative time of year. Being what they are, the movies can sometimes overstate the romance and renewal of springtime. This year, however, I find myself in the mood for any and all films that give the season its rosy due.
In compiling a streaming playlist of cinema’s best spring stories, my mind went first, of course, to its sweetest, sunniest depictions. Perhaps no film has ever matched 1942’s Bambi (on Disney+, naturally) for the sheer pastel-tastic euphoria of its spring scenes. The accompanying ditty Let’s Sing a Gay Little Spring Song might seem like overkill, but you’ll nonetheless find yourself absently humming it for days after. Is it the most purely ravishing of
Disney spectacles? Certainly, its budding animated woodland is iridescent in a way no real-life flower field could ever quite be.