Animé and Toons
Brave
By Hervé St-Louis
July 14, 2012 - 13:56

Studios: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Writer(s): Brenda Chapman, Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Irene Mecchi
Starring: Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters
Directed by: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell
Produced by: Pete Docter, John Lasseter
Running Time: 100 minutes
Release Date: June 22, 2012
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Distributors: Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios



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Young Scottish princess Merida is to be married and must, under the orders of her dominating mother, abandon her love of archery and other ungraceful “boys” activities to concentrate on being the perfect heir to the throne. But rebellious and tomboy Merida will have none of that and enter a competition under her own guise in order to win her own hand. But winning the competition is not everything and there is a cost to be paid if none of her suitors can claim her hand. Is Merida prepared to pay the price and defeat an ancient curse?

This movie was one of those great Pixar movies that adults can enjoy without hauling a kid with them. I commend the director and the writers for stopping short of turning Merida into a damsel in distress and meeting some poor sap who works with the horses and is clumsy and would have made her discover true love. Merida does not discover true love in the form of a man in this movie. Instead, she discovers true love from her mother. This movie is about female empowerment and it’s great that it’s all it’s about. The most important characters are all women. The witch, Merida’s mother Queen Elinor are women and the intrigue is about them, not any of the male characters. I didn’t expect that from this film and because of that, it’s a classic to me. It went beyond Mulan by not tagging a love interest to the protagonist.

If there are any clichés brought up by this film, it’s that of the red hair heroine which is a staple of comic book, fiction and cartoons. Shades of the story borrowed elements from Wonder Woman, but instead of an Amazon’s world where men are the enemy and the unknown, here, Merida struggles to defeat her prescribed fate as a beautiful damsel in distress that gets married at the end of the story. I didn’t quite believe Queen Elinor’s conversion at the end of the story. She did not seem that she really approved of her daughter’s choice, but it doesn’t matter, Merida made a choice and there was no male lover in the riding his horse in the sunset with her on the back. I’m not a feminist, but this movie is as close I would be if I were, and I enjoyed it very much.

Now, I don’t know what technology was used to render Merida’s hair, but I can bet nailing that part of her character was a big aspect of the film. My one major complaint is about the character design of Merida and her mother but let me backtrack with some historical information. Critics have complained about how every boy in Disney’s cartoon had the same character design for decades. Even Ariel, they say had the same basic boy face so many Disney characters had over the years. There was no innovation. Well, in the last few years, since The Incredibles probably, every female character, including Planet 51, Megamind and Monsters vs. Aliens have used the same character designs or something quite close. Brave borrows from that too. I’d rather see them use another style for female characters in the next Pixar movie. That would really breaking boundaries in storytelling.
Rating: 9/10

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