Crappy film

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I tend to be a genuine sucker for animal pictures. One of the reasons may be because animals are so genuinely unpredictable, unlike most people in the movies these days. You can look into the eyes of most animals and not have a real clear picture of what they are thinking or feeling. So I sometimes find movie-animals more fascinating than movie-people. But the second—and primary—reason is because they bring me to admire the skills and patience that go into making a film. All movies are difficult to make, even the awful ones. That goes without saying. But there a number of them where the tremendous effort does not really paint itself on the screen, regardless of whether they are good or bad, absorbing or unbearable. I tend to be astonishing by animal movies for the same reason I tend to be astonished by movies featuring stop-motion animation: I instantly become aware of the exhaustion the creators had to subject themselves to.To make "The Bear," the filmmakers required their stars, two bears, one an adult, the other a cub, to crawl across landscapes, play around in water, and appear to grow close to one another. The cub is orphaned at the beginning of the picture when its mother is killed in a landslide; the adult is a territorial old male wounded by bear hunters. Now the bears had to perform just right before the camera. They had to not only appear convincing, but maintain continuity whenever the director would decide it was time to move the camera to another angle. I've heard of accounts where the director and trainer would wait all day just to get the bear cub to turn its head in the right direction for a subsequent shot and then keep its head there when they got to that subsequent shot.On that level, and others, "The Bear" is an absorbing movie-going experience. But it is also a glorious massage on the senses. First of all, it looks beautiful. The directing, which consists of numerous cuts, not just long documentary extreme wide-angles, is consistently interesting. Also remarkable is the sound design. The movie was probably shot, mostly, without any sound equipment, for the trainers would be shouting at the bears every second, commanding them what to do and when. So every footstep, every grunt, snarl, bird chirp, gust of wind, sound of a grasshopper, you name it, was developed and integrated in post-production. Yet it all feels so natural; it was not until after I saw the movie that I became aware of this, once again reminding me of how much stress the filmmakers had to put upon themselves.Just imaging the making of "The Bear" puts my memories of volunteering on "The Boarder," a low-budget family drama shot in rural Nebraska, to shame.I also liked the movie for its human scenes. I guess that contradicts part of my opening statement, but then again, there seems to be an exception to every rule when it comes to the movies. The only humans in the movies are the two hunters chasing after the adult bear. Apart from the wonderful acting by Jack Wallace and Tcheky Karyo, I also enjoyed the level of detail given to them. The way, in the opening, the movie breaks down the process by which they hunt the bear. I particularly liked the touch where Mr. Wallace plucks some grass and lets it fly from his fingertips in the wind, so he knows just how much he needs to angle his rifle before he takes the shot. These are pretty interesting characters, and I actually did not mind it so much when their moral denouement at the end flew completely from the realm of predictability."The Bear" only loses its head when it tries to get inside the mind of a bear. Literally. Animals dream. Anybody who has ever owned a dog knows that. But just what they dream or what they see in their dreams is anybody's guess. Now the movie does offer a suggestion: a purple-tinted world with a quirkier-moving version of the animal wandering about in some strange surrounding. The dream sequences are handled through stop-motion animation: the other movie-making process that astounds me. And also I certainly did not mind seeing the animation, it nevertheless broke the shape of the picture. More effective would have been implying that the animal was dreaming and allowing us to use our imagination.

People who criticize this movie for lack of realism regarding bear behaviour have missed the point. This is not an "Animal Planet" documentary; it is a movie. One reviewer bitches that an adult male bear would have killed or even eaten a bear cub. Who cares? This guy probably watches "Dumbo" and then scratches his empty head, wondering whether he ever saw an elephant that can fly.I wish more of these knuckleheads would put that much "thought" and scrutinize Michael Moore's fantasy propaganda "documentaries" with the same kind of nit-picking zeal.Watching the film, I was torn between enjoying it and wondering if some animals weren't hurt in the making of it after all - in spite of the obligatory end-credits statement that "no animals were harmed". Of course, if any animals WERE harmed, they'd hardly be able to take the film-makers to court, now would they? And their animal relatives? Animals are far too poor to afford lawyers that can go head-to-head against Hollywood's finest scheissters.Obviously, bears can be trained to do all sorts of things, being the intelligent creatures that they are, but some of the scenes were a little dubious. "Look... We'll just drop the cub into a fast stream, and see if he does something funny. If he dies, we'll get another one. Who'll notice?" Am I being paranoid? I don't trust film-makers, especially European ones (not to mention French ones)..."The Bear" is a solid movie. It has its slow/dull moments, but some highlights, as well. The dream sequences were unusual, an interesting approach to trying to get inside the mind of an animal. The bear cub himself was also quite amusing in a number of sequences.The only major criticism I have is that they gave the cub human "baby-voices", i.e. half of the noises we hear from him come from some French actress sitting in a dubbing studio, goo-gooing her a** off to please the director. It just sounds stupid. I would think that the noises a bear-cub makes would be sufficiently amusing/entertaining on their own without such nonsense having to be thrown in.

This outdoor wildlife drama, stars Jack Wallace and Tcheky Kayro as two nineteenth century trappers. The trappers share the spotlight with two bears that they encounter during one of their Pacific Northwest expeditions. The film examines the relationship between a young cub and a fully matured Grizzly. This is an excellent wildlife film which might be a little frightening at times for younger children, but includes many heartwarming scenes for parents and older children. Viewers who prefer limited dialog should love this film, which presents a substantial portion of the drama from the young Grizzly's prospective. The film which has several touching and humorous moments is highly recommended for family viewing, but keep in mind that it may not be suitable for younger children.

I have seen both good and bad from director Jean-Jacques Annaud, films such as 'L'Amant' being an example of the former, and 'Enemy at the Gates' an example of the latter. With this movie here he takes you to the edge of the film universe. I'm saying that in the sense that this movie relativises many things. The fascinating thing is that you have bears playing roles here. They are acting, they partake in portraying fictive situations. And they do it with credibility. To liken this to something, the issue of how young an actor might be awarded an Oscar, a César or whatever might be mentioned as one from which similarly tricky questions may stem.As to the story, it is rather simple of course. You could easily re-imagine it with human characters, with some little kid in the focus. Especially if you think of what the older male bear's character would be like then, it could be your typical socially responsible art movie with a lesson. However, telling the tale with bears turns any such consideration totally superficial. What else but a simple story could be credible in their case? Unless you're ready to see talking animals, of course.While the bears 'cast' in this movie have perhaps more of a personality than what you would by conventional wisdom attribute to them, they weren't presented as vegetarians for the sake of being more easily accepted by a moralizing audience. And seeing these bears play as they did, even knowing that in some places the film-makers did use a trick or two, who knows, perhaps I should reconsider how much of a personality a bear might have. Very likely I should, I would add, still under the impression.