We get to return to the woods and the animals with this next film. Another new film for me and certainly one I’d never heard of before. I’m glad I got the chance to experience it. For this project, I’m focusing on the story itself, including dialogue, character development, any subplots, how a story presents itself, the speed at which it moves, if it slows down unnecessarily, etc.
Update: In February 2022, I started a video version of the DFP on Tiktok. You can find the video below. Thoughts expressed in the video may be different than what are expressed in the blog post, due to the time difference in posting.
A Brief Summary
In Wildwood Heart lives a young pine squirrel named Perri. After her father sacrifices himself so that Perri and the rest of her family might be safe, Perri grows up exploring the world around her. When she meets another squirrel named Porro, she finds the chance to love. But where there’s love, there’s also danger as many predators live in Wildwood Heart and Perri is the favorite prey. Includes owls, foxes and lots of acorns and pine cones.
What works
- From the get-go, Perri was different from the previous True-Life films. Rather than the usual paintbrush and canvas to create a picture of where the story would take place, there was a musical number. Or, I should say an opening song similar to those found during the opening credits of many of the other Disney films.
- What I have come to love, I mean LOVE, about the True-Life series is the narration. True, it can get a bit scientific and educational, BUT it utilizes my favorite kind of humor with how it humanizes the different animal interactions. With Perri, the narration is only elevated from the level it’s on in the other films. Perhaps because there was a smaller, more centralized cast of animals, but it took everything that I loved about the True-life scripts and made it better.
- There’s a more defined storyline in this that I really appreciated. It made it so much easier to follow and I believe that is because it focused on Perri, with brief mentions of Porro and the other residents of Wildwood Heart.
- The film not only follows in order of the seasons, going in full cycle from spring to spring, but it also covers the course of Perri’s life, from her earliest days to her grown-up life.
- There was actually a villain which I think is a first for the True-Life films. I mean, sure, there were enemies and predators in the earlier films as in this film. BUT with the seasonal nature of the storyline, there emerged the recurring appearance of our creature in particular: the marten. Specifically the Marten mother, who gets the scariest close-up I’ve seen in a long time (even more than the bugs in Secrets of Life).
What may or may not work
- So shortly after the winter season begins, Perri has ‘a dream’ aka a way to pass the time until spring. It gives a chance to show off some winter-time animals but with ‘snowflake’ special effects. Definitely the ‘fantasy’ from the film’s title. It was fine and I chuckled a bit to see the special effects, but it was kind of weird.
- The story’s about Perri (and her mate Porro) but early on in the film, other animals are shown and talked about. They’re not given names other than the name of their species, but their hunting and feeding habits are shown. I understand why they’re there, but the scenes were just a hair too long. I kept wondering when I was going to see Perri again, even if there were some entertaining bits with the foxes and raccoons.
Honorable Mentions
- Perri’s just
skippingrunningmoving squirrel-like through the forest and OH MY GOSH! There’s Bambi, all grown-up (obviously) and in live-action. And one of his kids is with him. - The lullaby song was actually quite nice. Definitely my favorite of the three songs in the film.
Side Questions
- What happened to Porro’s midden log? Did the raccoon eat all of the food during the winter?
What I learned from watching this film
- I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting myself into when I started watching Perri. On D23’s website, it lists this as ‘the first and only True-Life Fantasy’ and that it is based on a story written by the same author as “Bambi”. So I took that to mean a more defined story and found out that there was a ‘dream’ sequence partway through the movie. It was better than I thought it would be and actually brought some different writing exercises to mind while I watched. Specifically going out into nature and watching different creatures move about and coming up with the reasons why. Creating a fictional story from reality. With summer just around the corner, I might have to give that a try.
If you’ve seen Perri, what are some of your thoughts? Share in the comments below!
Rewind to the beginning of the Disney Film Project
Skip back to the previous film with Johnny Tremain
Fast Forward to the next film with Old Yeller
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