The (very) late review of Brave (and animation talk generally)

The kids and I never got around to seeing Brave at the cinema, but we watched it at home last night on DVD.

What a seriously flawed movie for Pixar.

The first problem is a technical one:  it could just be our LCD TV is a particularly bad one for low light, but a movie like this which takes place about 2/3 at night (and then often inside a gloomy castle) is hard to enjoy at home without a lot of attempts at re-adjusting contrast and brightness. In fact, I never achieved a satisfactory adjustment.    I suspect a lot of people trying to watch it at home would find this.  The one thing that is really visually eye-catching, though, (when you can see it) is the main character's red hair.  It moves and bounces so realistically that it almost gives the impression of a doll being filmed rather than watching a purely animated effect.

But the big problem is the story.  To my mind, it makes no emotional sense at all.  To summarise:  a well intentioned Queen does the usual thing:  wants to find a husband for her strong headed daughter via an arranged marriage from competing clans.  Mother and daughter argue; daughter is led by magic lights to witch who gives her a magic pie to "change her mother".  Said pie turns mother into a bear.  (?  Why a bear in a fake medieval Scotland?)  Mother and daughter spend a night learning how to get to know each other better - as daughter and bear.  Mother (still as a bear) communicates that she was wrong; daughter makes speech about breaking tradition and everyone "writes their own story".  A bit more to do about the King not realising his wife is a bear, and then bear turns back into mother. Daughter and parents continue living together.

There's a little more to it than that, which I won't bother explaining, but really, this story just doesn't work.  In Brother Bear (a much better Disney film involving people transforming into animals) the "victim" of the transformation had a lesson to learn, and the whole idea of people being able to change into an animal had some resonance in the Inuit tribal setting.   It just doesn't seem to fit into any traditions of Scottish folklore that I've heard about (not that I'm any expert on that, and maybe someone will prove me wrong.)  But what's more - it just didn't seem fair that it was the mother alone who had to undergo the trial in order to learn a lesson.  

Of course it's not the first time that Disney animation has been thematically about a strong daughter finding her own way in life; but this daughter never struck me as a particularly sympathetic character.  Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian probably summed it up well:

Now, in some respects, it is interesting and unusual not to have a conventional love interest, but what we are offered instead is something oddly regressive, binding Merida into the family unit just when she was making that bid for independent adulthood, and we don't learn anything very interesting about Merida or her mum. There was a time when Pixar movies worked gloriously for adults, teens, tweens, small kids, everyone; this one is unsatisfying for all ages.

Interestingly, the Guardian also had a historian briefly talk about the film.  From this, I learnt that some aspects of design in it were more realistic than I expected, but also that bears were not around in Scotland since prehistoric times. 

Now that I've finished complaining about that bit of animation, I saw Rise of the Guardians with the kids over the holidays, and it was a much better experience.   Although it was odd in parts (why the Easter rabbit should be furry version of Crocodile Dundee is beyond me), but there were sequences in the film that did have that emotional effect that was missing in Brave - the explanation of the origin of Jack Frost in particular.   Overall, the movie worked a treat with the audience I was with, even though it is probably fair to call it a more kids-centric film than many others made by Pixar or Dreamworks films.   I see that it only made $100,000,000 in the US (although twice that amount overseas.)  This really counts as under-performing for its quality, and if you are in the market for buying a DVD for some kid you know, I can guarantee this one would please them.  (Not that it is out yet, I expect.)  

It is amazing in its own way, isn't it, when moving illustrations (together with the musical cues, I suppose) can move us emotionally.  As I have said before,  I would be very thrilled to be part of a team that made a successful animated film.

And finally, quite a few places have been putting up this Disney Oscar nominated short Paperman and praising it.  I think it is pretty good, and again shows the sort of magical realism story that is done so well by the medium: