I realize my thoughts on the movie won’t sway many people to
watch or abstain from Brave. I do
think it’s a good idea to document my initial reaction to it for later when I
go more in depth later.
I've decided not to let a Rotten Tomatoes score influence my
thoughts on a movie. According to the site, Brave
has a slightly better score than Cars.
If we take that too literally, it means Merida’s archery pleases as big a crowd
as Mater’s dad-gumming does. Yeah, that
doesn’t make a fair comparison. I found Brave
more subtle, more confident, and more focused.
The biggest problem I found was the misleading title. Much
of the movie addressed less bravery and more communication. From Merida
struggling to communicate with her parents to the clans trying to communicate
civilly between each other, to that one Scottish boy whose accent is so thick
no one knows what he says. The word Brave as a story title is perhaps a little
too vague, since just about any conflict you can name needs at least a little
courage to solve.
I wouldn't suggest a name change for the movie, but perhaps
address why Merida's actions are so ground-breaking. The mother could be
protective of her daughter, as we saw her reluctance to let Merida learn to use
a bow. That and her husband lost his leg to a bear. And the mother tries so
hard to set Merida’s fate in stone we could explore tradition as a type of
comfort zone. It worked pretty well in A
Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo. Oh,
well. That was really the main problem I felt the movie had. The rest of it
made me really happy to be there.
The characters are colorful. The most fascinating one for me
at the moment is the father. For one thing, he exists. Second, he’s the one
with a peg leg, yet he's not as protective as her mother until danger seems imminent, then he's a father in battle. The mother,
in turn, has her reasons for her expectations, and seeing how she learns to
communicate with her daughter is a testament to Pixar’s way of conveying
meaning to the audience. From the faces of Merida's suitors you can tell they
aren’t 100% enthused about the whole thing. And here’s something cool to think
on: There’s no real villain, only good people who do bad things. Even the witch
in the movie is reluctant to cast any type of curse for fear of the
consequences. The conflict comes from characters being themselves.
Pixar still has a way with visuals, too. There’s pretentious
symbolism and metaphor to satisfy the English majors. Consider Merida’s hair,
and how hard it is for some people to let their hair down in the film. Bears
turn out to be a sign of fear, and something the characters must overcome. And
as each confronts her personal bear according to her character, so we must….never
mind. Symbolism aside, we’re in Scotland!
It’s fun! There are bagpipes and waterfalls! There’s so much life in the
film and it really helps the audience take themselves to that world.
Bottom line: Brave
got the job done. It could have made the whole bravery thing more clear, but
there was a story, things got worse, then they got better, and I enjoyed my
time in Scotland.
