Summary:
An orphaned bear cub teams up with an adult male and the pair try to dodge human hunters.
My Thoughts:
I have a friend at work that is just as into movies as I. We go back and forth with recommendations and this film was one he thought I would enjoy because I’m “into those weird artsy movies.” He ended up bringing the DVD in for me to borrow and when I brought it home, my roommate (and fellow TMM reviewer) Karl got excited and said that he had seen the film many times before as a child. We sat down to watch “The Bear” and even within a few minutes I could tell that I was really in for something special. This is a movie unlike anything else I’ve ever seen; for most of the film it feels more like a nature documentary than anything, but as we follow the bears we begin to see their personalities, and they grow as characters.
This movie transcends itself: if you were to take it at face value, it would be nothing more than a film about a pair of bears wandering over the mountainside. But as you watch these bears navigate through the wilderness, you get a sense of appreciation for who they are as individual animals and how they interact with their environment. It’s also awesome to watch the hunters as they move through the wilderness and hunt different bears; neither party is good or bad in the situation, they simply are. The hunters are hunting to survive, and the bears are just living their lives. As we watch the two pairs circle each other (bear and human) there comes an appreciation for nature and life as a whole, and that’s largely thanks to the direction of Jean-Jacques Annaud.
Annaud is able to ascribe more meaning to even the smallest of interactions between the bears and humans. The bears seem to grow and develop as characters, in a way that makes them feel far more realistic (and loveable) than any of the creatures in the live action Disney remakes of “The Jungle Book” or “The Lion King”. We feel the emotion when the young cub looses his mother; we feel elation when the cub finds someone else to take care of him; we feel the tenuous bonds forming as the adult male slowly opens up to the smaller one. This film filled me with an immense sense of calm and an appreciation for the vastness and wondrous happenings of nature; it seems that Annuad is trying to say that even if bad things happen in the world, something good will come along to balance it out. There is tenderness, compassion, mercy, and understanding in every living thing under the sun, be it a human or a bear or a bumblebee. There is a good and a bad side to all things, and those sides together form a beautiful balance.
I think this is one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen in terms of landscape cinematography. Nature is one of the characters in this film, and while it isn’t as threatening a character as it is in, say, a film like “Deliverance”, it’s presence is still impossible to ignore. Annuad does a great job of finding locations that help to elevate the overall emotional tone of the scene (which helps the film transcend itself in the long run). The movie was shot amongst the Austrian Alps and Italian Dolomites; beautiful doesn’t begin to describe the scenery. It simply has to be seen to be believed.
Verdict:
This might be the best animal movie I’ve ever seen. I loved this movie, and I couldn’t believe how well it worked for me on so many levels. I wholeheartedly recommend this film, and I think that its innocent enough that it could be enjoyed by people of all ages.
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