The Bear

1988 bear movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A recently-orphaned bear befriends another bear as the two try to survive some dastardly bear hunters. Bear.

This was not on my radar as I was putting together a "Favorites of 1989 List," but I'm really glad I stumbled upon it and gave it a watch. I'm not into nature movies exactly, and I'm not sure animal movies are my bag either, but this one grabbed me with stunning shots and a pair of incredible performances.

You might even say they were beary good performances. A few weeks ago, I raved about Daniel Day-Lewis's performance in My Left Foot, but you know what? Bart the bear might be better than Daniel Day-Lewis. There are some very tender moments, there are a lot of action sequences, and there are a lot of times when Bart gets to show off a range of emotions. There wasn't a single moment in this movie when I didn't think I was watching a real bear. Youk the bear, the younger bear, is almost as good. At times, it seemed like they were dubbing these little bear whimpers, and I didn't like that so much. I did like the amplified lip-smacking, chomping, and belching sounds though. I'm not usually a fan of hearing the act of eating (in fact, I may have snapped at a daughter who was doing that a little too loudly this morning), but those enhanced sounds added to this experience.

The lack of dialogue also enhance the experience and help the story unfold more naturally. There isn't any dialogue at all until the 16 minute and 40 second mark, and the hunters spotted throughout the movie are the kind of quiet tough guys who know when to shut up and let the visuals speak for themselves. There's really some great visual storytelling here, right from the beginning with shots of rock and a butterfly that illustrate both sides of nature and continuing to the very end with some of the most beautiful snow you'll ever see in a movie.

I don't know if cinematographer Philippe Rousselot or director Jean-Jacques Annaud deserves most of the credit for some of these shots. Some of them just seem too perfect. What an eye! I'm almost positive that this was a case where hours and hours of shit was filmed with a whole bunch of cameras and then spliced all together into the somewhat cohesive story. So maybe editor Noelle Boisson deserves all the credit. Just watch the intensely violent dog/bear brawl on a rocky cliff side. Or a scene where Bart the bear is shaking a tree, shown both as a medium shot and a long shot. Or a scene where the bears chase and then devour a deer. Or this very quick shot of the two bears standing up in unison. So much of this seems like the product of happy accidents.

I also enjoyed some of the odder moments--the little bear high on shrooms and a couple of strange dream sequences, one with a frog that I think might have been the product of some bad honey.