Brave marks the first
time a Pixar film has featured a female protagonist, a revelation that seems
somehow disappointing given the company’s unparalleled access straight to the
sweet-spot of the brain’s empathic, happy-making center. Yet, it’s true: Pixar has totally snubbed the
ladies. With over a decade of instantly
recognizable boyscouts, boy-toys, and boy-bots under their belts, the animation
gods had a tremendous amount of make-up work to manage with Brave’s Princess Merida. Brave needed
to not only feature a return to the strong storytelling of their past features
(in the wake of the dismal, toy-schilling Cars
2), it also had to give us a fully-dimensional woman with her own tale
worth telling. While I love my Disney
Princesses, if Pixar had followed up a dozen beautiful tales of friendship and
adventure with a full-tilt happy ending sap-fest aimed at hawking amulets at
little girls, I’d have flipped my lid. We
didn’t need another lips red as the rose, overly curious hair-brusher, talented
songstress, or snappy chick in an over-the-top ballgown stumbling upon true
love; we needed a real girl. Luckily,
Pixar’s a smart brand. They rose to the
challenge and delivered a wildly wonderful female protagonist with strengths
apart from merely being able to assert herself in a male dominated world. Merida’s a killer archer, yes, but more than
anything she’s a young woman actively addressing the expectations of her
society and her mother, seeking to decide her own fate, and struggling with how
to achieve that and remain happy.
The more I think about Brave,
the more I find myself loving all its little details. The story is an original one, but in the hands
of the Pixar imaginarium, it feels like a tried and true bit of folklore
already time-honored and lovingly worn. In
the lush majestic Scottish highlands, we’re
introduced to Merida and her family: loudly lovable King Fergus, decorum-focused
Queen Elinor, and three troublesome triplet brothers. The time has come for Merida to be married
off to a first-born son from one of the neighboring lands, and she’s not having
any of it. While part of Merida desires
nothing more than to let her hair down, gallop aimlessly through the woods,
climb cliffs, and loose arrows; the story doesn’t let her simply cite “being a
tomboy” as her reason for putting off the seemingly inevitable. The truth is one she admits: she’s just not ready. It’s not time yet. She hasn’t grown up, and she needs time to
form her own identity, to spend time on her own, and pursue her own interests instead
of settling into a life of royal domesticity.
Merida scoffs at the mere notion, citing her unscheduled wedding date
with evident disdain as “the day she becomes her mother.” It’s a repellent idea to her, and one she
seeks to prevent at all costs. After taking
desperate measures, however, the film veers in a direction wholly separate from
the comedy of manners that came before.
I won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say that where the first half
places the pieces, the second upends the board for a surprising, urgent
adventure.
While it’s true that Brave fits comfortably into the fairy
tale world of the Disney brand, and many will cite an adherence to ‘convention’
as a reason why it doesn’t quite meet their expectations for Pixar’s emotional
rollercoasters, I’d urge you to give it a close look and admire all the small
details that are contributing to the very sense of something effortless that many are scoffing at. Where past Pixar outings have offered us
glimpses into imaginative spaces that challenge elements of the world as we see
it (inside the toy box, inside the aquarium, behind the child’s closet), Brave will undoubtedly be discounted for
its grounded, human elements. Its
landscapes read (ironically) as too real, too genuinely cinematic to truly leave
a stunned impression. They’re not
majestic, brightly colored cartoon spaces, they’re craggy mountains, lush,
gorgeously rendered trees, branch-blocked footpaths and flaming, intricately
created hair (practically a character itself).
With Brave, they’ve sought the
aesthetic of the epic and have created sequences that seem made for crane shots:
inviting expansive landscapes, castles that rise out of the mist, intricately
detailed storybook scenes designed to make the eye wander.
The details of the characterization, too, are loaded with
lovely subtleties that speak volumes. When
Elinor shoves Merida’s hair under a wimple for the ceremonies, she insists
(silently) on drawing out a single lock.
It’s part of her identity, and part of her rebellion. Elinor displays her own stubbornness in the
opposite direction, doling out etiquette instructions long after its appropriate
for her to do so (that will make sense later). Their relationship becomes integral to
everything at work in the film, and where Tangled
began to mine the wealth of material at play in the often antagonistic
relationships between parents and daughters of so many fairy tales, Brave successfully constructs a push
pull dynamic both natural and
tragic. Merida exerts a fair amount of
effort bitterly hating everything her mother seems to stand for, yet Elinor’s
not as happy about the things she must introduce her daughter to as she seems. Even when the elements working to teach them
their individual lessons become a bit heavy handed, the familial bonds depicted
here are smartly dealt with. So, is it the absolute best movie Pixar has
made? Probably not. The story could be a little stronger, the
backup characters could use a little more depth. It is, however, a very consistent, lushly
beautiful, very worthy addition to the oeuvre and one deserving of quite a bit
of love. Ignore the doubting critics, if
you can. They’re like those helicopter
parents who ground their kids when they get an A instead of an A+. Brave’s
a solid A, and one you’d be remiss in dismissing.
Great review that explains why the film works as opposed to what it is about or why it didn't live up to expectations.
ReplyDeleteThanks, tried to really consider it as its own entity instead of just pitting it against its Pixar siblings.
DeleteAwesome review! I have yet to see the movie but all of those reviews I read today really make it seem like a fantastic film. I'm not big on animated features but this one really picked my interest because of the gorgeous setting of the story and the character of Merida.
ReplyDeleteSo, does the soundtrack entry on your site mean you've seen it now?
DeleteNo, I frequently listen to soundtracks before I get to see the movie :)
Delete