Lu ling (1982) Online

"Deer Bell" is a 20-minute animated short from the Shanghai Animation Film Studio (People's Republic of China) done entirely in the style of traditional Chinese ink painting. It has no dialogue but relies on a music score performed by traditional Chinese string, woodwind and percussion instruments. I've never seen another work of animation quite like it, not even among the others I've seen from China. It tells the story of a fawn separated from its parents after the parents fend off an attack on the fawn by a swooping hawk. A young girl and her grandfather who live in the mountains are collecting mushrooms and herbs nearby when they find the lone fawn and decide to take care of him. The girl is especially playful with the fawn and the two become quite close. She puts a bell on a string around its neck (hence the film's title). She takes him into the village with her (where a monkey tries to ride its back) and eventually trains him to help her collect mushrooms and plants. The fawn is starting to grow horns when it finally hears the cries of its mother again.

The animation is quite fluid, particularly in the movements of the deer and the girl's graceful motions. The deer moves like a deer and the girl moves like a happy, excited young girl. Occasional closeups show the girl's joyful facial expressions. The colors are muted for the most part, although we do see splashes of red and blue in some of the flowers in the mountains and on the wings of a bird. The girl wears a blue apron over her blouse and a pair of red pants. She also has rosy cheeks. The deer's brown coloring is created by soft, blurry, almost fur-like patches over its torso and legs via a most effective method, although I couldn't tell you exactly what it was. The background paintings often boast striking detail. Imagine an entire feature film animated in the style of this one. What a magnificent work of art that would be. The music is quite lovely and reminded me a bit of the famous "Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto."

If I have any minor complaint, it's that the deer's behavior gets a bit too precocious at a certain point, particularly when it uses head and hoof gestures to volunteer to go to town to perform a specific errand after the girl's leg is injured on a plant-finding expedition. I somehow doubt that deer were ever that domesticated or could be trained that well. Even so, it's a far cry from the anthropomorphism in Disney's BAMBI (which, of course, has its own considerable virtues).