Ah, Brother Bear (2003). One of Disney’s forgotten children. Say what you want about Disney, the mouse is a ruthless, unscrupulous businessman. And it works out for ’em. And us too because I was able to watch Brother Bear recently thanks to Disney Plus.
I remember watching the Tuke and Rutt commentary on the special features when I was growing up. Thanks to my grandparents for tolerating watching that over and over. And if you have access to the DVD or the special features I highly recommend it. It’s a director’s commentary but with the moose from the movie instead of the directors. Pretty funny.
Alas, today I’ll be talking about the regular version of the movie and why it’s more a story about misunderstanding than it is about brothers.
Brother Bear takes place in the Pacific Northwest during the last ice age with a tribe of Inuit natives. Three brothers are fishing before Kenai, the main character, has his totem ceremony. A ceremony in which he will receive his spirit animal.
At the ceremony, Tanana, the village wise woman, gives him the bear of love. Kenai is confused and disappointed. He was hoping for something tougher or manlier.
After this, Kenai and his brothers, Denahi and Sitka, discover that a bear has eaten the fish that Kenai failed to secure properly. Kenai decides to go after the bear for, erm, vengeance? The brothers are against the idea but he runs off anyway and they follow in an effort to stop him.
After a fight with the bear, Sitka is left dead and the bear has escaped. At Sitka’s funeral, Kenai decides to hunt the bear again. He removes the bear of love totem from his neck.
After another fight, Kenai kills the bear but is then transformed into a bear by the spirits.
This leads Denahi, who had been trying to catch and stop Kenai, to believe that the bear has now killed both of his brothers.
Kenai wakes up on the shore of a river after falling off a cliff into raging rapids. Tanana shows up and explains that Sitka must’ve transformed him in order to show him something. Sitka’s totem in life being the eagle of guidance.
Tanana tells him that to speak to Sitka, he must go to the, “mountain where the lights touch the earth.”
Kenai then meets Koda, a bear cub who is trying to reach the salmon run; a place where all the bears gather once a year to feast on salmon and have fun. Sort of a harvest festival for bears, if you will.
The salmon run conveniently happens to be right next to Kenai’s destination. Kenai decides to go with Koda because, well, he doesn’t know where the mountain is.
They set off together but they bump into Denahi, who has now taken up the mantle of revenge against the bear.
After they escape him, the bears keep traveling and we are treated to a traveling montage with a song sung by none other than Phil Collins. Who also wrote all the songs for this movie. What a legend.
Anyway, the bear duo happen upon a few cave drawings. One depicts a battle between a human and a bear. Koda says, “those monsters are really scary.” In reference to the humans.
Kenai has a moment of realization at this point. If he were human and a human child was sitting next to him, it would be safe to assume that the child is referring to the bear when they say monster. But if that’s true, then it should also be safe for Bear Kenai to assume that the bear cub next to him is referring to the human.
They are nearing the salmon run at this point and Koda says their last obstacle is this place:
While they’re walking through the caldera, they are once again attacked by Denahi. As if walking through there wasn’t enough of a trial in itself.
When they cross the ravine on the other side of the caldera and evade Denahi, they arrive at the salmon run:
I thought that the way Disney handled the two above images and their corresponding scenes provided a nice visual metaphor for the idea that to get to Heaven, you have to go through Hell. But that’s a topic for another time.
Koda tells the other bears at the salmon run that he and his mother have been separated and he will wait for her at the salmon run. Kenai realizes who the bear he killed was.
He runs away. When Koda catches up to him, Kenai reveals the truth. He says that he has done a terrible thing and tells Koda the truth. Including where Koda’s mother is.
Koda runs from him.
On top of the mountain where the lights touch the earth, Denahi once again ambushes Kenai. Kenai tries to flee and Koda joins the fray but it is not enough, Denahi has the upper hand. Right before Denahi kills his own brother, Sitka (the brother that died) intervenes and the northern lights explode above the mountain in the middle of the day.
Kenai is turned back into a human and Denahi realizes the truth. Kenai approaches Koda, who is now hiding behind a rock.
After a moment, Koda realizes that it’s the same Kenai he knows and loves and jumps into his arms.
Kenai makes the choice to return to bear form; he knows that he cannot leave Koda. Sitka obliges him.
The movie ends with Kenai’s paw print being added to the wall where the villagers have added their hand prints over the years and Kenai’s bear of love totem once again rests around his neck.
The song playing at the close include the lyrics…
“Show us that in your eyes
We are all the same
Brothers to each other
In this world we remain truly
Brothers all the same”
It explicitly refers to the spirits in question in the film but I must admit, the song has a very, “gospel-y,” feel to it.
Regardless of who or what the song is speaking to, I believe those lyrics are at the heart of the film’s message.
You see, Brother Bear asks us: how often do we fail to understand someone else’s position? How often do we not even care to try to understand their position? Particularly when they have wronged us.
So often, we do not stop to think about why that person did what they did and what we might’ve done in their shoes. Even when we do think about what we might’ve done, it’s often a quite forgiving opinion of our character and judgement and it also often doesn’t take into account certain variables and circumstances that the person was faced with.
Kenai made the choice to go after the bear for doing what a bear does. Kenai failed to tie up the basket of fish properly despite his brother’s warnings. So it is his fault. Not the bear’s. What fish-eating animal would not capitalize on an unsecured basket of fish?
But, being the young, hot-headed person he is, he doesn’t stop to think about what went wrong, ignores his brother’s protests, and hunts down the bear.
It’s easy for us to watch from afar and think, “Why would he do that? I would never think to do that.” But are we always so clear-headed and wise? It’s easy to say we wouldn’t go after a bear. I wouldn’t. Even with a high-powered rifle, let alone the stone-tipped spear that Kenai was equipped with.
Let’s put it another way, one that’s a bit less hyperbolic than ‘hunting down a bear that has eaten my fish’:
You’re watching a WW2 movie, some of the characters are panicking when they come under fire. Some of them make dumb decisions and die, the main character is saved by his commanding officer. Your friend says throughout the scene, “Run! Why aren’t they taking cover? Why aren’t they shooting back?”
These are natural things to think and you may have even said them yourself. But let’s propose some answers to the questions your friend was asking.
Could it be possible that they are in shock? Assuming your friend is not a combat veteran, they have never been in a war-zone and have never experienced artillery shells exploding around them and bullets flying towards their head.
How old is this person? In WW2, a 16-year-old could join the military if they had parental consent. Do we count on 16-year-olds to always make sound decisions? Well, they cannot vote for one thing.
As for why they aren’t shooting back, perhaps they’re afraid to poke their head out. Perhaps they do not have a clear shot. Perhaps they are out of ammunition.
It could also be that the filmmakers just decided the character would do that in order to build tension.
We often criticize the actions of movie characters and say something along the lines of, “I would do X if that happened to me.”
But would we? It’s very easy to criticize when we are at home, sitting on the couch with a blanket and a sweatshirt. How would we know exactly how we would behave in a scenario that we have never been in and have received no training for?
We can say that, in Kenai’s situation, we would not attack the bear that ate the fish. If it were us. But it’s not us. It’s Kenai. Who is a hot-headed young man from a hunter-gatherer tribe, eager to prove himself a man and who has just been disappointed at a big coming-of-age ceremony.
Had Kenai not tried to go after the bear for a second time, or even the first time, he wouldn’t have been turned into a bear, and Koda wouldn’t have lost his mother.
Had Kenai simply thought to himself, “If I were a bear, I probably would’ve eaten the fish too,” and went home, we wouldn’t have a movie to watch.
But you get the point.
Through the events of the movie, we are shown that if we take the time to learn the other side of the story, maybe we wouldn’t make as many mistakes.
In the movie’s context, if Kenai had taken the time to understand his own responsibility in what the bear did, Sitka and Koda’s mom wouldn’t have died.
In our context, if we take the time to think things through and understand our own part in things, maybe we won’t make so many rash decisions and misjudge so many situations and people.
And we won’t be the annoying friend who always knows exactly what every movie character should do in every moment.
Like the song lyrics, this movie shows us that we can see new things if we just open our eyes to them.
We are not as different as we sometimes think. Forgive one another. Think before you act or speak.
Those are the lessons that I believe are at the core of Brother Bear.
Thank you for reading.
*All images featured in this post belong to Disney.