Film
The worst in terms of reviews, the most complex and layered of the decade if we talk in narrative terms. The story of this Classic is that of Sitka, Denahi and Kenai, three brothers living in North America during the last ice age and divided forever by a tragedy: Sitka loses his life after a clash with a bear and in the form of a spirit will have to guide his younger brother Kenai, blinded by vengeance and in turn transformed into a bear by the spirits of ancient heroes, towards reason. The boy finds himself looking after the cub Koda, becoming his adoptive big brother and acquiring a new point of view on the world, but above all finding himself facing the reflection of what he used to be by clashing with Denhai, totally unaware of what has happened to his brother. No less than four protagonists with a precise path to follow on the notes of Mark Mancina and Phil Collins, who returned to compose for Disney after his previous experience in Tarzan.
Art
Brother Bear tells the story of Kenai, a young man from the Inuit tribe who is about to become an adult. As a symbol of the actual transition from childhood to adulthood, it is the custom of the tribe to put his footprint on a rock wall along with that of all their ancestors. This is the dream of Kenai, who eventually succeeds in realising it, although not in the way he would have imagined.
Although the story is set in North America, it is at the opposite end of the continent that there is a cave like the one described in the film: it is the Cueva de las Manos in the Alto Río Pinturas area in the province of Santa Cruz (Argentina). The site was designated a National Historic Monument and in 1999 was declared a Santa Cruz Historical, Cultural and Natural Heritage Site and a World Heritage Site (UNESCO). It consists of a cave and includes ledges and rock walls with cave paintings. The archaeological sites located along the Río Pinturas gorge testify to the complete occupation of the area by hunter-gatherers over a period of 8000 years.
As in the case of Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear also plays with the image of a famous painting by hiding it between the credits, because good things come when you least expect them. In this case, we see bear cub Koda trying his hand at prehistoric cave painting, but with a degree of foresight: the drawing he has reproduced is the core of the world-famous masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on The Island of La Grande Jatte, created in 1884 by the French avant-garde artist George Seurat. In addition to being a rather large painting (207.6 x 308 cm), what makes it surprising and captivating is the realisation that every element that our eye can appreciate on the canvas is composed of thousands of dots. A very technical and decidedly successful scientific experiment that is based on the certainty that our brain instantaneously assembles many spots of colour into a detailed form. The closer you look, the more the shapes fade away and all you can see is a multitude of individual patches of colour. The value of this Neo-Impressionist trend, which incorporated science and art into a single creative endeavour, is now considered to be the nucleus of further important variations and artistic techniques in the 20th century. The bear cub evidently knew this.
External links
Guarda Koda Fratello Orso su Disney +
Paintings:
George Seurat, Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (1884-1886)
Archaeological site:
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