The suitors are merely the Macguffin (in one case, the literal Macguffin) who have no significance to the plot except for driving action forward. We have been tipped off that the central conflict in the story will have nothing to do with the would-be suitors. The clans’ names are Dingwall, Macintosh and Macguffin–perhaps not the most subtle screenwriting but certainly good for a few laughs. We then find out that, to preserve unity among the four clans, Merida must be married off to the firstborn of one of the other families. The brother in question seeks out a witch to give him the strength of ten men, and soon he brings discord and division to the once peaceful kingdom, which remains to the present day. The brothers lived harmoniously together until the fateful day when one of them began to crave more for himself. We listen as Elinor tells her daughter legends about the past, in particular the legend of how the “four clans” descended from four sons of a single king. As a number of reviewers have noted, Fergus may formally be called king but the real power behind the throne sits with Elinor. Which doesn’t stop Elinor from expecting her to be every bit as much the political and diplomatic power-broker in the kingdom that she herself is. She clearly takes more after her father than her mother. Left to her own devices, Merida would do as her father later jokes, AKA “stay single and ride on a horse at dawn, firing arrows while her hair blows wild in the wind.” Merida is much less interested in royal decorum than she is in scaling craggy cliffs and drinking from secret waterfalls, and she lacks neither the physical prowess or warrior’s confidence to do so. Indeed, as has been noted elsewhere, the mother-daughter relationship lies at the heart of this film. When a killer bear attacks the village, his point is unintentionally proven.Īfter the title sequence, we flash forward several years, and Merida has grown into a young woman who bristles at the micromanaging concerns of her mother. Fergus notes that his daughter clearly loves the gift and that anyone and everyone should be able to defend themselves. Elinor’s husband Fergus has given Merida a bow and arrow, a gift that Elinor does not believe is appropriate for a clan princess. At the opening of the film, for instance, we find young princess Merida playing hide and seek with her mother Elinor. This is not to say story doesn’t contain any of the trappings of the rote princess story. Fortunately, Brave is a much better film than any of the cookie-cutter examples with which it might be confused. It’s a set up which, in less capable hands, could result in yet another recycling of the Dreamworks’ “be true to yourself” mantra or Disney’s own set of princess-genre bromides. Superficially, at least: the protagonist Merida is an impetuous red-haired princess who feels shackled by tradition and tribal expectation. With Brave, the people that brought us the Toy Story trilogy– arguably the greatest film trilogy originally conceived as a story for the screen–have given us a movie that, at first glance, runs the risk of being confused with the work of a more simple-minded studio. Now in its 17th year of box office activity, Pixar may have entered into chronological adolescence, but the studio is far from becoming a brazen teenager who’s unaware of the past. Have a great Fourth and we’ll see you back here on Thursday: ![]() ![]() This article was corrected on 30 August 2012 because the original standfirst said pedalled, when it should have said peddled.Just in time for Independence Day, a wonderful (if spoiler-heavy) review of Pixar’s latest from resident animation guru Jeremiah Lawson. Richard Oram is a Professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Stirling. It's said that she and her ladies appeared on the battlements, dusting the places where the enemies' stones had fallen – though that particular story may be as apocryphal as the events in this film. There's Euphemia, a countess of Ross in her own right in the 14th century, and Agnes Randolph, Countess of Dunbar, who defended Dunbar Castle during the 1330s. The fact that the film has a strong woman at its centre may actually be quite accurate: we know very little about women in medieval Scotland, but those we do know about seem to have been pretty feisty. It's also highly unlikely there were bears in medieval times: we think they became extinct in Scotland in the prehistoric period. That ties in with the view peddled abroad since Queen Victoria: that of a bare, rugged land, inhabited by wild men in kilts. The general feel – the mix of water and hills, forest and mountains – is very good: the forests are a realistic blend of Scots pine and birch.
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