The Bear (1988)
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The Bear Movie Review
The Bear is a 1988 family adventure film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It’s such a wonderful, spirited and detailed flick.
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“Good luck, little fella“
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A bear cub is left alone, unable to feed or defend itself, when its mother is killed in a rockslide. Eventually, the cub attempts to bond with a male grizzly, which initially ignores it. When the grizzly is pursued by hunters, the cub comes to its aid and wins the grizzly’s affection. However, when one of the hunters captures the cub, the grizzly must confront the armed hunters.
Annaud is such a terrific director when it comes to naturalistic, grounded, almost silent films. As he did with ‘Quest for Fire’, he repeated also with The Bear. This film has very little dialogue with its only two human characters, but it’s never boring in any way. Quite the opposite, it’s one of the better adventure films as it’s incredibly adventurous, moving and very involving.
It follows the everyday lives of grizzly bears in British Columbia during 1885. A bear cub becomes orphaned, then chased by hunters and he experiences many perils, including being chased by a cougar in that highly suspenseful third act.
I loved the theme of a reformed hunter which was wonderfully explored along with the exploration of every animal’s place in the ecosystem. It doesn’t shy away from portraying animal killing as it really is – a life cycle.
I liked the humans, they were very well performed by the two actors. The same goes for the very well trained animals, especially the bear cub. He is so incredibly cute that he becomes very easy to root for. The highlights are his adventures and his reactions to his everyday activities.
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The Bear is absolutely gorgeously shot. The Canadian mountains are exquisite to behold, and everything is beautifully shot with many instantly memorable, wallpaper-worthy images. The score is also wonderful, the direction is strong and the pacing is superb.
The only problem I’ve had with the film is its very uneasy mix of immense, brutal realism and Disney-like cutesy factor such as anthropomorphism in the cub in particular and a lot of the humor with the cub in some scenes. Those were sweet, but they undid the film’s otherwise nature documentary-like approach.
Despite its uneasy mix of brutal realism and Disney-like cutesy scenes, The Bear is a wonderful adventure flick that is spirited, engaging and moving throughout. It is gorgeously shot with its jaw-dropping natural landscapes, the grizzly bear cub is incredibly cute and many moments are very cinematic and intense with the highlights being the scenes with the cougar and the hunters.
