The Brave

When I saw Albert Nobbs a couple of days ago, I saw a preview of another film. It's the kind of film which I hadn't seen for nearly a decade. It's an animated film. The preview looked interesting. Expecting a cinema full of children between the ages of 7-11, I got into same cinema again. To my surprise, there were more adults than children! The film? It's a 3-D movie called "Brave" , produced by Pixar Animation Studios, co-founded by Steve Job (who died last year) and distributed by Walt Disney, the first film to use the newest Dolby 7.1 surround sound or the Atmos sound format.

The story is simple enough. It's about a certain princess who has been taught from a young age to become a real "princess" which meant she had to learn lots of stuffs and had to memorize long lists of "do's and don'ts" , including manners and respect for tribal customs and traditions. Her father was the King Feargus of Clan Dun Broch, head of 4 largest clans in the 10th century Scotland which had previously joined forces to repel the Vikings but are now in competition with each other. The occasion was the betrothal of the princess Merida. In accordance with tribal traditions, her father called upon the chieftains of the four largest clans in the kingdom to bring along their first born and to make a marriage proposal her daughter princess Merida's husband. They would be selected on the basis of a competition. The four tribes brought along their prince and the competition began: Merida decided that they compete in archery in which she excelled. One of them hit the bull's eye. But Merida didn't like the prince. So she announced publicly a new rule viz she herself could also compete for her own hand, after having argued unsuccessfully with her mother, Queen Elinor to call off the wedding. She hit the bull eye in each of the three targets shot by the 3 other princes and for the one who had a bull's eye, she aimed, let go of her arrow which split the arrow in the bull's eye into two and then ran away to seek help from a witch to change her mother's mind. Her mother was furious and during their quarrel about whether to call off the marriage, they tore the tapestry of unity. Following the will of the wisps, she reached the witch's cottage and asked the witch for help to change her mother's mind. The witch agreed, stowed her fire and boiled her cauldron with all kinds of magical ingredients and finally gave her a cake. In fact, unbeknown to her, whoever ate the cake will be turned into a bear and only when the magic words are spoken will the bear be turned back into a human being. Not knowing that, she returned and offered it to her mother as a "peace offering". After Elinor took a bite, she felt dizzy and shortly afterwards, was turned into a huge black bear but in the meantime, her three greedy triplet younger brothers also took what's left over of the cake and were instant transformed into 3 little bear cubs. Her father who had lost his left leg by a huge bear called Mordu in the past smelt bear in his castle. Anxious to regain his honour in front of the four tribes, he immediately started a bear hunt at the castle, joined by all a sundry. After much "misadventure", Merida succeeded at the very last moment to "mend the bond torn by pride", the spell words stipulated by the witch and completed it by restitching the tribal tapestry symbolizing the unity which had become torn. But before then, she reminded the four clans to remain united and to allow their children to choose their own mate. The four clans agreed and left happy. Merida and Elinor saw them off.

Before the main feature cartoon however, we had a bonus, a short film called La Luna about a child torn between conflicting advice from two equally stubborn and old men who thought he was better than the other. In the end, the child turned out to do better than either of them.

The animation was excellent and as in other 3-D movies, some of the images rushed towards us until they reach within a few feet of our nose. Like most animated films, it was full of fun, humor and hilarity and not a little excitement. The cartoon figures were drawn with remarkable skill, full of the expected exaggerated expressions. As in all Disney film, it has a happy ending. The music too was excellent. The Scottish music was specially composed for the film and includes the songs "Touch the Sky" ,  "Into the Open Air" and "Learn Me Right" by Patrick Doyle who used rhythms of the Scottish reels, jigs and strathspeys. A real joy to watch!