BRAVE

BRAVE
Directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
Written by Mark Andrews, Steve Purcell, Brenda Chapman and Irene Mecchi
Voices by Kelly McDonald, Emma Thompson and Billy Connolly


Princess Merida: If you had a chance to change your fate, would you?

Not surprisingly in the least, Pixar’s 13th animated feature, BRAVE, is breathtaking from the very beginning. The sprawling Scottish highlands are already beautiful in their natural state but when Pixar uses their imagination and technical ability to recreate something, that place is reborn anew on screen. Ordinarily, they have the same ability to reinvigorate even the oldest of stories and this time around, they take aim at the very familiar princess archetype and while they do make BRAVE into an altogether compelling and rousing coming of age tale, I’m not sure I would call it an altogether brave effort.

Princess Merida (voiced by Kelly McDonald, who replaced Reese Witherspoon when she couldn’t do it, thank God) has always been more interested in playing with swords instead of playing with boys. Her father, King Fergus (Billy Connolly), encourages her while her mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), strives every day to make her into a proper princess. In order to maintain the order of the land, Merida must marry one of the first born princes from the neighboring kingdoms, but Merida is adamant about not wanting to be any part of this. In fact, this is what Merida is best at, knowing what she doesn’t want as opposed to knowing what she does. This is why, when she pays a mysterious (and hilarious) witch to change her fate, she isn’t the least bit specific about how exactly she would like it to be changed. And so it is altered, but the question becomes, is this new path any better than the old one she was on or is it actually worse? And worse still, can Merida even make it back to her true path now that she’s embarked on this one?

BRAVE is efficiently told without a trace of fat to be found. And while there are no unnecessary distractions as a result, the whole thing feels a tad rushed and bit slight considering the pedigree putting it out there. That said, Pixar’s best efforts (especially for a film that changed directing hands, and subsequently changed direction drastically, half way through) do elevate BRAVE far past its minor shortcomings to be extremely enjoyable and exciting. Merida should stand strong and proud in the long line of great Pixar characters. She shows us and herself that our fates are living and breathing inside of us at all times; we need only be brave enough to see them and embrace them.

Be sure not to miss Black Sheep's interview with BRAVE director, Mark Andrews.

My Top 5 Pixar Films

This month, Pixar Animation Studios will release its 13th feature film, BRAVE. To mark the occasion, I give you my Top 5 favourite Pixar films. Aside from the CARS films, I'm a big fan of all the Pixar pictures, so it was tricky to narrow it down to five but when it came down to it, I knew these were my Top 5 all along.

In alphabetical order, they are ...

FINDING NEMO (2003)

Pixar's first Academy Award winner for Best Animated Feature was also their first bonafide worldwide smash. Sure, they had success with all four of their previous releases but not compared to the staggering heights FINDING NEMO just kept swimming toward. I have been dying to watch it again for some time now but I am waiting for the 3D rerelease expected later this year to dive into this ocean one more time. Once you find yourself immersed in these uncertain, and breathtaking waters, the magic of Pixar, and director, Andrew Stanton, takes over. Waves of laughter, suspense, heartbreak and immense joy crash over you throughout the experience. In fact, it's so good, you kinda almost wish Nemo would stay lost just a little longer so you could stay under water that much for a few more minutes.

THE INCREDIBLES (2004)

I will freely admit that the first time I saw THE INCREDIBLES, from Pixar genius, Brad Bird, I missed large chunks of it because I was on a date and reasonably distracted. In all fairness, I was torn. Through the corners of my eyes, I could see that this was one, well, incredible piece of filmmaking. What I love about this film, aside from the phenomenal animation work, which goes without saying practically for all Pixar features, is how it skates so perfectly between the spy genre and a family film. It is as intense as any James Bond picture, with action sequences that put some big budget live action films to great shame, but it still has that unmistakable Pixar heart that makes it unforgettable. The only thing I don't get about it, is why we have not yet seen Mr. Incredible and family get the sequel they so rightfully deserve.

RATATOUILLE (2007) 

They said Pixar was crazy for putting rats in a kitchen and expecting people to show up in droves but they were wrong! Well, mostly anyway. RATATOUILLE had a hard time hitting the same success as some previous Pixar outings but like fine dining, this dish is just not for all. Those who love it though, and there are certainly many, know that this is one of Bird's finest works. The unlikely friendship between Remy, the rat, and Linguini, the chef, shows us that we should always dream and that sometimes, we need others to help make the loftiest of our dreams come true. The visual style of this Paris-set masterpiece is exhilarating and intensely well orchestrated; it demonstrates at all times just how much care Pixar puts into every frame. Like the critic in the film, feasting on this dish always makes me feel like a child again.

THE TOY STORY TRILOGY (1995, 1999, 2010)

By now, we can all acknowledge that Pixar redefined the notion of family film when they released their first feature, TOY STORY, in 1995. Not only did they give the world the first fully computer animated feature but they also reworked the genre so that the films that came after it would play, or at least attempt to play, to both parents and kids alike. And as audiences flocked to the experience, they quickly realized that this new style of animation was actually amazing to behold, and not clunky or limited as some believed it would be. The first sequel would break records around the world and by the time they got to the third film, by far the most accomplished and surprising in the series, Pixar had also shown the world that sequels, even the ones we don't think are necessary, can and should have great purpose. 

WALL-E (2008)

My heart melts every time I see WALL-E. Firstly, he is by far my favourite Pixar character. By the sheer nature of his being a robot, he is limited in his capacity to feel and show emotion but somehow, he exudes more love than most of the human beings I know or see on screen. His courtship with the beautiful EVE was so simple - all he wanted was to hold her hand really - and yet it was also so incredibly moving. In fact, it got me feeling things I forgot I knew how to feel. It also had me in total awe for the first half of the film, which is essentially silent. It was such a bold move to remove almost every trace of dialogue from a family film that it could only have been made and pulled off by Pixar. Some argue that the film loses focus once talking is reintroduced into the film but I would argue that those people just wish they feel as purely and as honestly as WALL-E does.

What's your favourite Pixar movie? Vote in the Black Sheep poll! (Top right corner of the page)

Also, click here to order any of the Pixar posters in this article.

Black Sheep Interviews Mark Andrews

PIXAR, THE BRAVE.
An interview with BRAVE director, Mark Andrews

Who would have ever thought that the studio who brought you rats in kitchens, robots in space and monsters in closets would be considered brave for telling a princess story? Yet, here we are. Pixar Animation Studios is set to release their 13th feature length animated film, BRAVE, this month, and all anyone can seem to focus on is the fact that for the first time in Pixar history, the protagonist is a girl.

“It is weird,” BRAVE director, Mark Andrews, tells me when I ask him if the attention his main character’s gender is garnering, is at all strange to him. “It’s not like we have a big dry erase board that says, ‘Pixar films until 2025: Girl picture, giraffe picture, something in Saudi Arabia!’ If we focused on that aspect, on marketing, on what we haven’t done, then we would be playing to that instead of playing to the strengths of the character and the story.”

These particular strengths are what Pixar has come to be known for and this can be at least in part attributed to their incredibly organic attention to detail. “We are more focused on building something from the ground up instead of hitting some bar or some expectation,” Andrews tells me of the Pixar philosophy, when we meet at Toronto’s Casa Loma, during the BRAVE press tour. “We’re still very much in the canon of Pixar, which is to say you’re going to get something where you don’t really know what to expect, but trust us, its gonna be good.”

The film had just screened, to great fanfare, for Toronto audiences the night before. Naturally, Andrews wore a kilt to the event. In what is now a great Pixar tradition, a number of the film’s animators, along with Andrews, spent a couple of weeks in and around the highlands of Scotland to take in the scenery. Andrews considers this research pilgrimage to be invaluable if you want to get out of your head. “You have to go, you have to touch everything to get here,” Andrews motions toward his heart at this point. “And once I get here, then I can get it on to a page or into a painting or tell somebody else about it because I can give them these details to hold on to. You get to the character of it all.”

Andrews, hard at work

The character everyone is talking about is Merida, a red-haired fireball of a character, as bullheaded as she is fearless and forward thinking. Not only is Merida, voiced in the film by BOARDWALK EMPIRE's Kelly McDonald, the first Pixar girl but she’s also a princess at that. “Disney’s done the princess, y’know, a lot,” Andrews jokes boisterously. “We knew we had a princess. It serves the story and raises the stakes but we knew we were making an anti-princess. She’s everything a princess is not.”

Taking on a princess in a long line of princesses, while still making sure to make the character modern and relatable to today’s crowd, meant tweaking the formula a little. “Being a princess and being a woman are very different things. It’s not this old adage that you have to be saved, that you have to fall in love to be complete,” Andrews states with the pride of a father. “Merida’s not questing for happily ever after. She’s discovering who she is and how she fits into this world, on her own terms.”

Merida marches to her own beat

And so even though I began all of this by pointing out how odd it is that there is so much focus on Pixar first’s in BRAVE (add first fairy tale and period piece to the list while you’re at it), as opposed to the film itself, Andrews is happy for the attention nonetheless. “I kinda like that everyone is gravitating to the specifics about the film so that when they see it, they’re going to see it’s so much more than just a picture about a girl.”

THE OSCARS: LIVE ACTION and ANIMATED SHORTS

It's Oscar week, people! It's time to take a closer look at all the major categories and throw in some all new reviews for the animated and live action shorts. The week will finish with predictions for the big night, as well as the announcement of the 2011 Mouton d'Or Awards.

First up, the key to winning your Oscar poll is to master the supposed smaller categories. The showier categories, like acting or picture, are pretty much sewn up weeks before the actual announcement so everyone has the same answers. This leaves you categories like Live Action Short and Animated Short to shine in. I'd say that you're in luck as I've seen all the nominees but unfortunately, I don't really know what the Academy looks for in these categories. All I can do is tell you what I saw and thought and hopefully that will be enough.

I was reasonably impressed with the live action short nominees. PENTECOST, from Ireland, is 11 tight minutes about a young boy who embarrasses his father by being a disastrous alter boy. The boy can't focus on God because he has soccer on the brain. The boy then gets one last chance to do right by his father but he begins to question if he would be better off just doing right by himself. It is funny and effective and it would not surprise me to see it take the prize.

A short film can be a great way to tell a joke but it gets tricky to tackle important, dramatic subjects in such a small amount of time. At 24 minutes, the Germany/India co-production, RAJU attempts to tell a very real story about a German couple who adopt a young toddler in Calcutta, only to lose him in a crowded market the next day. The build to his disappearance is rather obvious, with a mounting sense of doom looming in the musical score. Naturally, the child's disappearance pits the couple against each other. It was a bit trite and predictable for my tastes.

The Shore

I was also not bowled over by THE SHORE. Hailing from Northern Ireland, this short has the longest running time of any of the nominees, clocking in at 31 minutes, and stars the only recognizable actor of any entry as well. Ciarin Hinds stars as a man returned to his home country after 25 years of absence. He has not come to make amends with past mistakes but realizes he should when he arrives. The difficulty is that I never felt like he had actually owned up to his past so I was left unsatisfied. (Note: THE SHORE was directed by HOTEL RWANDA director, Terry George. This may tip the win.)

TIME FREAK is the lightest of the five nominees. Heed this message, control freaks. Time travel is not for you. Often funny and clever, this 10 minute short follows one inventor as he attempts to perfect every single moment of the day. It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that this isn't all that healthy but it provides plenty of laughter for us so it all evens out. It is cute but likely a little too slight for the Academy.

My favourite of the bunch would be the nominee from Norway, TUBA ATLANTIC. This 25 minute story finds an elderly gentleman with six days left to live. A young girl scout type shows up at his door the next day to help him deal with the stages of death. Their unlikely bond forms as the twosome find creative ways to kill seagulls and come to understand that they both have fears about death. The action culminates into a cross-Atlantic tuba jam session of sorts, making for a quirky yet endearing work.

Tuba Atlantic

The animated short nominees were just lovely. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing but I found them all to be reasonably enchanting in their own rights and all stylistically deserving of their nomination. The first entry is DIMANCHE (SUNDAY),  a 10-minute short from the NFB here in Canada. The animation is hand drawn, sketchy in style with a good deal of shading, and it follows a young boy trying to pass the time on a Sunday afternoon. It is adorable to watch but there might not be enough weight to win.

A MORNING STROLL, from the UK, is my pick to win this category. It is only 7 minutes long and it makes a poignant point while keeping its tone light and amusing. A young man is seen taking a walk in 1959, 2009 and 2059 and each time, he crosses paths with a chicken. The style of the animation mirrors the period it is depicting and I believe voters will find the deterioration of society and courtesy to be a deserving topic to reward. Plus the chicken is just the cutest thing ever so they won't be able to resist.

A Morning Stroll

Canada's second entry in the category, also produced by the NFB, is a short film I've actually seen in two separate screenings. This is a definite rarity. WILD LIFE tells the story of a young Canadian lad who travels out west when the west was still in fact wild. Told in a series of painted images in 13 minutes, the film depicts life for one particular young man, who writes home of tall tales while finding himself living a pretty minimal existence. All the while, insert cards about comet facts break up the action and, while it is a very striking work of art, it didn't make much sense to me.

THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE (15 minutes) was directed by a former Pixar designer by the name of William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg. The story itself is this random string of events that involves a hurricane and nods to THE WIZARD OF OZ and Buster Keaton, which all culminates in some musing about how books are important and disappearing. This American entry is very pretty (read, looks like a Pixar film) but its a pretty plain statement after all. I mean, look at the title character's name; Even that is obvious - More is less more? C'mon now. I know this is animated film but give your audience a little more credit than that. Oh, by the way, this is the film that industry insiders have tipped to win.

La Luna

This just leaves the actual Pixar nominated short, LA LUNA (also from the USA). Of the five, this is by far the most gorgeous and enchanting of the bunch. Pixar has not had the best of luck in this category in recent years so it might not be a safe bet to vote for it, but it is so easy to fall in love with. In 7 minutes, an adorable little boy helps his father and grandfather clean up the shooting stars that have gathered on a cluttered moon. It glows with warmth and heart and, despite my admiration for A MORNING STROLL, I would be tickled to see this take the top prize.

Next up: Best Original and Adapted Screenplay