#125: The Bear

Release Date: October 27th, 1989

Format: Streaming (Tubi)

Written by: Gérard Brach

Directed by: Jean-Jacques Annaud

3 Stars

Every 5 years or so, I find myself re-watching The Bear with the hopes that I will like it more than I did previously. 

I guess I’ll keep trying.

Photographically, it’s a beautiful movie, and the story is interesting - an orphaned bear cub befriends a large male bear while they are both being hunted by fur traders in British Columbia, Canada circa 1885.  

And the animal “actors” are incredible. Each time I see the film I’m amazed at how director Jean-Jacques Annaud pulled all this off. The bears and horses and dogs and mountain lions are all real and sharing the same screen at times. It’s pretty amazing.

Ironic that the filmmakers pulled off this incredible feat, but fumbled on the story’s tone and characters. The Bear borders on an emotional manipulation, to the point where the viewer just isn’t having all that much fun. There are shots of bears being crushed and shot and falling down mountains and being ripped at by packs of dogs. On top of this, Annaud has given the cub character a distinctly human voice, so when the young bear experiences any sort of pain or fear, we hear a human actor’s voice dubbed over, I guess in an effort to humanize the animal. 

It’s this humanization of the bears that is the strangest part of the movie. Annaud and writer Gérard Brach’s thesis seems to be that bears are not only as caring as humans, but are in fact more capable of feeling empathy than us. Well, this just isn’t true. Based on what I know of bears, it’s more likely a male adult bear would kill a cub rather than adopt it, in an effort to eliminate its competition for resources and mating.

So, The Bear ends up being a stunningly beautiful film with a great story concept. But as far as getting to the core truths of bears and humans and our relationship in the wild, The Bear is a failure.