*The first three
paragraphs are not even remotely relevant unless you’re seriously interested in
the politics of animated film production.
Brave boasts two primary directing
credits: Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman.
Andrews is an old hand at Disney, having acted as Head of Story on the
very fine The Incredibles as well as
his most recent (and unfortunate) screenplay credit for John Carter. Chapman
is no slouch either – she was Head of Story on The Lion King and directed one of Dreamworks’ best and most
cinematically exciting efforts: The
Prince of Egypt, a retelling of the Moses story that focuses on the
conflicted relationship between Moses and Rameses.
Anyway. Nobody denies that the story of Brave is Chapman’s. She brought the project to the studio
and began to develop it as the writer/director. (At the time, it was much more evocatively titled The Bear and the Bow.) Not inconsequentially, Merida wasn’t
the only female first for Pixar – Chapman was to be the first woman director in
a company that is notoriously male-dominated even by industry standards.
Eighteen
months before Brave was scheduled for
delivery, Pixar replaced Chapman with Andrews. It’s disingenuous to say that this was misogynistic or
unprecedented: Monsters Inc., Toy Story 2
and Ratatouille all had
directorial switches, for reasons the company is reluctant to disclose. But it is unusual enough that people
wondered about the motives for the change. After all, who better to tell the story of a headstrong
daughter than a woman who admitted that the script was based on her own
relationship with her six-year old?
Pixar has never come out with a reason, and probably never will. But at points in Brave, the cracks show.
It’s impossible to tell whose hands shaped what, but there are
definitely two sets of distinctive tonal fingerprints on the film, and it
muddies it up somewhat.
This
is Pixar’s first foray into a few things: period pieces, female leads, and the
dreaded Princess Movie. In the
Scottish Highlands, adventurous young Princess Merida is chafing under the
controlling thumb of her conservative mother, Queen Elinor. Unbeknownst to her goofy, encouraging
father Fergus, Merida and Elinor are in an escalating cold war about Merida’s arranged
betrothal. When the
day comes, Merida looks for a third option with disastrous results and must
struggle to right her wrongs and understand the true meaning of family and
tradition.
It’s
probably not worthwhile to go into why it’s disappointing to see Pixar, a
company that has historically tried to tell fresh stories with unconventional
protagonists, choose the tale of a princess who doesn’t want to get married as
their first female-led feature.
That said, Merida has one quality that certainly hasn’t cropped up
before in the Disney stable:
She’s
kind of a jerk.
Disney
princesses are unfailingly as kind as they are beautiful, even when their
clumsiness or naïveté or whatever other relatable flaw they’ve been saddled
with puts them in awkward situations.
Merida is… immature. Self-centered. A little bit whiny. She’s not a bad person in any sense of
the word – she’s just fifteen, with the inflated sense of gravitational pull in
the universe that age entails. Is
this an interesting choice?
Absolutely. Does it work?
…Mostly. A few scenes (particularly one where
she harasses her ailing mother) ring very false and tip Merida’s attitude from
‘realistically self-absorbed’ into ‘callously indifferent to the feelings of
others’, something you don’t want your protagonist to elicit unless you’re
writing about Patrick Bateman.
That
said. The first time a child
expresses explicit hatred for their parent – and the fallout from that declaration - is a powerful
experience that isn’t expressed on film nearly enough, particularly in films that
children can watch. On a related
tack, Pixar also broke from the Disney tradition not just in letting the mother
live (won’t somebody think of the dead Disney mothers?), but in creating a real
character who’s not evil, just struggling to connect to her children and
fulfill her own duties. They’ve
done this before, and probably better, with Elastigirl in The Incredibles, but the specific conflict between mother and
daughter brings a new angle to the table.
Merida
and Elinor are pretty standard foil characters in this day and age. Watching Merida fly through the forest
on her trusty Clydesdale is certainly marvelous eye candy, but her reserved
mother’s admonishment that a princess “does not
place her weapons on the table” feels a little stale. Even their hair (red, curly and
abundant and restrained, straight and dark respectively) reflects their
somewhat cardboard odd-couple personalities. The film’s attempts to nudge them towards compromise are
very touching in parts, but it’s not the most creative pairing the studio’s
ever put out there.
[Disclaimer: it is very difficult to
review Brave without talking about Merida’s hair. It is truly awe-inspiring.]
Much
like the work coming out of Studio Ghibli, it feels almost superfluous to discuss
the technical quality of a Pixar film.
But it must be said: Brave is
absolutely beautiful. The
landscapes are lush, the characters emotive, and the ‘camerawork’ is fluid and
inventive. The period setting
allows for lots of beautiful forest that again recall older Disney films like
Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, and the titles are similarly retro. The only thing that breaks the vintage
feel of the piece is the surprisingly broad humour that comes from the male
supporting cast. What is it about
Scottish people that is so integrally tied to physical gags? It feels tonally at-odds with the more
emotional core of the film and I wonder if the discrepancy is due to its
production history.
Brave is not by any stretch of the
imagination a bad movie; in fact, it’s a good one. Is it as gripping and moving as Pixar’s
best efforts? No, but if we
compared every film in theatres to Pixar’s best we’d be sorely disappointed
much of the time. The story may be
safe, but Merida is far better company with faults than Snow White was without them,
and it’s well worth the brief hour and a half.
Other notes based on
something that freaked me out when I was walking back from the theatre:
---
Save
one significant point, Brave is identical to Beauty and the Beast.
Bear
with me.
In terms of structure, character arcs, and plot progression, it maps almost alarmingly close. The one difference is the nature of the film’s primary relationship. Instead of being romantic, Brave follows a daughter and mother.
This fixes a lot of the problems that came through in the original Beauty and the Beast. As good as that film is, it makes some very weird statements about how love and romantic relationships work, as many irate feminists have no doubt noted. In Brave’s familial context, that things that crop up in both films - irrational love in the face of divergent interests or opinions; the ability to forgive hatred and anger – play as a touching comment on why family is so important (especially during adolescence) rather than an affirmation that a good woman can change a savage
man.
---
There’s
a really explicit Maiden, Mother, Crone trifecta in the film, and apart from
those three [main!] characters, the Scottish Highlands seem to be exclusively populated by dudes. This is more
funny than it is troubling, but I do wonder if the Three Faces of Eve stuff was
intentional – it’s pretty obvious.
---
La
Luna, the short that preceded the film, is awesome. I won’t spoil it save to say that it
explores the themes of familial tradition and respecting your heritage without
enslaving yourself to it in a way that’s funny and sweet.
Also it is so cute.
Also it is so cute.
Haven't yet seen the film, of course, but will have to do so with your thoughts in mind.
ReplyDeleteJust saw it today, had a lot of fun. And the music, oh the music makes me feel at home.
ReplyDeleteBut don't forget about the busty cook, an essential female character if ever I saw one.