Drengen der ville gøre det umulige The Boy Who Wanted to be a Bear” and “The Bear Brothers

There are two animated films related to bears, both from the Eskimo myth and legend of a man turned into a bear, the plot is similar, both promote the theme of environmental protection and love of animals, staged one after the other, one from France, one from the United States Disney. Let’s assume that they can refer to each other.One.L’ENFANT QUI VOULAIT ETRE UN OURS, 2000, France.

Plot: When a pair of polar bears lose their baby, the mother is devastated and the male breaks into an Eskimo home to snatch the human’s newborn baby, a child named Little Bear, to support him. As the cub grows up, he speaks the language of bears, thinks he is a bear, and clings to his mother bear. Yet his human parents never give up the search: the biological father kills the mother bear and brings him home. But the young bear could not integrate into human society, and he quietly left home and found the mountain god, asking him to turn him into a real bear. The mountain gods gave him three tests: to swim across the strait like a bear, to fight the wind, and to climb the sacred mountain, which he did without hesitation, risking his life, and finally became a bear. He jumped and screamed happily …… However, at this time his father hurt him by mistake, making him hurt and turn back into human form. This time, his parents locked him in the house to prevent him from escaping, but he was getting more and more emaciated day by day and looked like he was going to die. His parents finally realized that the boy really did not belong to humans. The couple, already gray at the temples, unlocked the chains and watched their son go away, and he walked away, turning into a polar bear again ……

One weekend afternoon, I curled up on the couch to watch and actually burst into tears. The human child named Bear had no choice but to be a bear, and what he went through was absurd and lonely. His parents have lived a painful life since the day the bear took him, and he suffers for the loss of his mother bear and his own identity as a bear: they cannot understand each other’s pain. Here, my conventional wisdom was turned upside down: does being human mean you have to be human? Can one not love one’s biological parents? Can that empty, cold world be more attractive to him than a warm fire? What is the point of this story?

Yes, I can’t understand the obsession of wanting to be a bear, this is far from my life experience. However, the bear still touched me because he persistently pursued an impossible self and achieved it in the fairy tale.

The ink painting feature of the film is unforgettable. A few sparse strokes, like Chinese calligraphy, outline the empty and mysterious scenery of the Arctic. The outlines of the characters, all seemingly outlined by thick brushes, have a gritty quality that matches the theme. The smooth ink strokes and the primitive style of the music are full of “originality” and work very well together. This is a famous work of aestheticism.

One review said, “This film not only combines music and art in the purest sense, but also derives humanistic concern for life and environmental protection, perfectly turning a simple cartoon into a touching and poetic film.” I feel the same way, so I’ll copy it.

II.Another one called “Brother Bear”, 2003, Disney, the 76th Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature.

Plot: The main character Kenai is originally a young hunter, determined to kill all the bears to avenge the death of his brother while hunting bears. When Kenai kills the bear that took his brother’s life, the earth spirits decide to swap his soul with that of the recently deceased bear, forcing him to start another life as a bear. His second brother thought that Kenai, who had turned into a bear, was the same bear that killed Kenai and hunted him down (this family is paranoid as hell). In the journey to find the light of the curse and being chased by his second brother, Kenai met the bear Koda, this lonely little thing did not know that his mother was killed by Kenai, and immediately stuck to Kenai, in the process of continuous bonding, Kenai and Koda have a kind of relationship beyond the brother, and Kenai finally realized the mistake he had made … … … Finally, when the Earth God is ready to give him back to the human body, he looked at the need to take care of their own little “brother” Koda, decided to continue to be a bear. His second brother was watching with a smile on his face. The story ends on a good note.

First of all, it is certain that both are good works, but the former is unique and the latter has many friends. Disney’s years of experience in selling seats, so far has formed a pattern: relatively fixed style of painting, cute type of anime music, a certain presence of funny characters (in this film is a pair of very clumsy reindeer brothers, big horns always hanging together, forever arguing but love each other), and the typical American-style warm happy ending. It is too “typical”, so the Oscar for best animated film that year, awarded to the peculiar “three sisters of Belle Epoque”.

Three.Although both animations have the unbelievable ending of someone turning into a bear, but the feelings brought to me are very different. The first one made me cry silly, and the latter one, of course, the movie wanted to move me, but it was on the “other side” – could the audience really be moved by the main character’s willingness to be a bear?Why would Kenai want to be a bear? He throws away his human identity like an old cotton jacket because he has a brotherly love for little Koda? But he has a brother who was killed by a bear, and a second brother who is still alive and continues to hunt bears, and a human brother is not a brother? Raising a small Koda as a pet can also be well …… Of course, the assumptions of this film, the audience does not doubt, see Kenai and Koda embraced, the achievement of a moving scene of man and nature as one, the audience a moving, thinking on this end.

The happy ending is indeed pleasing to the eye: “From now on, Kenai is a free bear, living happily ever after with his little bear brother Koda”, but what the audience likes more is a reasonable happy ending.

The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear” is not a tragic ending, but the sad gaze of his parents as they see the bear go, and the white hair fluttering in the north wind, is poignant. The second brother of Kenai in “The Bear Brothers” is so happy and understanding to see his brother turn into a bear, which is obviously not enough to meet the human psychology.

I don’t think that “tearing up something valuable for people to see” is necessarily better than a happy ending, however, when something valuable is about to be torn up, suddenly consider that we can’t hit our fragile nerves, turn around rigidly and head for a happy ending, crawl over, this can be …… hard happy ending, like a big bowl of white rice stuffed to me when I lose weight.

Disney often shoved the audience “white rice”, probably think that cartoons must be happy, children should be happy into the cinema, eating popcorn happy to see, and then happy to go out. If the fairy tale to the tragedy came close, must be pulled back.

To the Disney cartoon, the little mermaid became the love of the prince, the two together to defeat the evil sea witch, “from then on to live a happy life”; Tarzan of the Apes and modern society have a conflict? Never mind, Tarzan took his bride and the bride’s naturalist father, the three went back to the jungle to be happy primitives, swinging vines while screaming; Hua Mulan is a beautiful woman, how can she not have a boyfriend? So not only did she have the emperor’s embrace, but also a handsome boyfriend ! People want to become bears, it would have required a major reason, but because “little bear brother needs to be taken care of”, it is better to be a bear. Bear Koda face now bear brother, the former mother’s murderer, there is no shadow in the heart? –Of course not, it goes without saying!

Americans always think that children and the rest of us humans are different: children to grow up “happy”, all without learning the truth about the world, living in a utopia can be. In Schwarzenegger’s “The Sixth Day”, the family dog died, Shi asked an institution to give him a clone of the dog, he rightly believes that children should not face life and death, too cruel.

In order for the child not to cry, it might as well clone a life for her. Yankee logic is so simple!

To reduce reality to a level that is supposedly “understandable and acceptable to children” is tedious for us adults, not to mention that this level is often surreal and inhuman – in other words, to distort human nature to suit a happy ending.

It’s like bursting your stomach to keep from starving to death.

Don’t take children too lightly, thinking they can’t understand. The child has traveled most of the earth’s evolutionary history from single cell to mammal inside the mother’s womb, carrying countless memories of life. After birth, however, it is only a few hundred years. Can we really belittle a child’s comprehension?

Let’s talk about fairy tales. Fairy tales are not assumed to be used to coax children. Fairy tales and myths are difficult to break down and are more ancient than epic poetry. It is a distillation of life, perhaps the best part of it. “The best” does not mean that there is no sentimentality, no truth of life, death, resentment, hate, love and separation.

A child’s tolerance for the cruelty of the world is actually very high. A good fairy tale is actually very cruel. So after listening to the story of “Snow White” and “Cinderella”, 4-year-old Jing Zhao asked the aunt who cleans the house, “Did your mother die?”

Growing up listening to such fairy tales, she will surely have a sound heart to face the world.

After “The Lion King”, Disney no longer has moving cartoons, and even high technology can’t save it.

If Disney cartoons become more and more like cloned kittens, even Mickey Mouse will die for lack of vitality.