A Brave Little Summary

is an epic animation film of adventure in a culturally and visually rich setting that is for audience of all ages to enjoy. Here is the movie's summary in case you have missed it.

                                        

I recently saw Brave by Disney™ and I am extremely captivated by the film. I usually do not watch animation films, but Brave is a movie that has managed to glue me to my seat.

The film begins with a scene portraying Princess Merida's childhood with her parents; King Fergus and Queen Elinor. King Fergus gifts Merida a set of bow and arrows - cinematic-ally this symbolizes that Merida is going to be a brave girl in the future. However, Queen Elinor is not very happy by this. This introduction scene symbolizes each personality's traits which is more like having a rough idea of how the characters are going to be like.

Baby Princess Merida

In this scene, a bear named Mor'du invades and attempts to attack the whole family. King Fergus manages to shoo Mor'du away by using all his might, but injures his leg in the battle. 

Mor'du vs King Fergus

 

Merida & Angus

  

Every step of the way, Queen Elinor trains Merida on how to behave like a perfect Princess. However, Merida is more interested in activities such as horse-riding and archery. She even has a pet horse by the name of Angus. Merida forcefully learns her mother's girly trainings despite being uncomfortable.

As Merida grows up, Queen Elinor plans for her marriage and calls different Kingdoms to present their proposal for their Prince for Princess Merida. This decision was taken without Merida's concent and she detests the marriage as all the candidates were useless anyways. 

Merida is forced to wear uncomfortable clothes to present herself in a Royal manner in front of the many Princes that came to see her. She gets really uncomfortable during that time since the dress that she was wearing was extremely tight.

Tight clothings are really uncomfortable :(  

 Due to the doubts on the candidates capabilities, Queen Elinor applies the "may the best man win" theory - having an archery match (suggested by Merida) to decide who is going to be in Merida's fate. In the match, Lord Dingwalli's son wins by accident. In anger, Merida shoots all the targets accurately to show her archery skills. Everyone is shocked to see such a "unlady-like" behaviour of her. Merida then runs off to the woods as Queen Elinor gets angry on her actions. 

Notice King Fergus's expression at the back? Lol....

The main point in the film starts when Merida follows the Will O' the Whisps (little shiny blue lights) when she was in the woods. These whisps take her to a house where a witch lives together with her pet crow. 

Will O' Whisps leads Merida to a Witch

Merida buys a spell from the Witch hoping that it will "change her mom". The spell is in the form of a cake which turns Queen Elinor into a bear. Merida seeks the help of her 3 little siblings in order to destroy the spell, and in this process they turn into bear cubs as they unknowingly taste the remaining pieces of the cake which was given by the Witch. 
 

Bear Elinor ;)

The Witch with her pet crow 

Merida finds out that the spell will become permanent by the second sunrise so Merida attempts to save her mother and siblings before that. Audiences will be on the edge of their seats, wondering what will happen next. Will Merida be able to break the spell and bring her mother and siblings back to normal? The answer is in this blog itself so read on.... 

Upon spending time with her beary mother, Merida realizes how much her mother loves and cares for her - something that teenagers often realize late in their lives. She regrets on what she has done to her own mother. The emotional flashback always gets me emotionally choked. I really find the scene as touchy when Queen Elinor loves Merida and protects her when she was a little baby in the flashback scene. That scene reminds me of my mother as she loves and cares for me in the same way. According to me, the spell actually serves as a platform to bond their mother-daughter relationship in the film.

This scene is so sweet....

Next, in the attempt to save her mother, Merida has to handle King Fergus, and the group of her "marriage candidates" and their fathers as they misinterpret that the bear (Queen Elinor) as Mor'du, the evil bear. Mor'du is an evil character shown in the beginning of the film where he was a victim of the same spell. He ruined his kingdom due to his selfishness to rule alone; without his 3 siblings. 

Protecting her mother.....

One of my favourite scenes is when Merida fights with King Fergus to save her mother. Merida manages to turn her mother and 3 siblings back to humans; making King Fergus realize that the bear is actually his own wife. The mystery to break the curse was to stitch a tapestry that was torn and even the evil Mor'du was released from the spell.

Pardes movie poster

Overall, I feel that Brave is a great movie as I personally love the plot very much. In contrast to this, due to my passion for Bollywood, I couldn't help but notice 2 similar elements with 2 Bollywood films. I was amazed at myself too for noticing a Bollywood film similarity in an animation film. Lol... :) 

The first thing I notice is the similarity in one part of Brave's plot with the movie Pardes, starring Shah Rukh Khan. In Pardes, there is a scene where Rajiv (Apurva Agnihotri) competes with Manuchand (Anand Balraj) in a "Kabaddi" match because Manuchand's father claims that Suraj Dev (Alok Nath) had promised his daughter, Ganga's (Mahima Chaudhry) marriage with his son. 
However, the reality was the proposal of Manuchand was only taken into consideration and it was not a promise. The match is an open challenge that awakened the egos of Rajiv and his family members. 

In Brave, the archery match is also an open challenge as the winner of the match will get the opportunity to marry Princess Merida.   

The Kabaddi Match at 04:00  

The Archery Match

Both films has scenes where a sports match is organized which will determine who will marry the female lead character of each film. However, both Merida and Ganga are not happy with these decisions as they would not like a stupid sports match, whether Kabaddi or Archery to decide who is going to be their husband !!!!


Another similarity that I notice is between Maudie in Brave and Kanta-ben in Kal Ho Na Ho. Maudie is the nursemaid of Merida's 3 siblings; Harris, Hubert and Hamish. In Brave, Maudie is always caught in comical situations where she gets scared or gets shocked and runs away in fright.

Maudie

In Kal Ho Na Ho, Kanta-ben is the maid of Rohit (starring Saif Ali Khan) where she always gets into situations where she thinks that Aman (starring Shah Rukh Khan) and Rohit (Saif Ali Khan) are homosexual. However, it is not true and is just pure coincidence that both friends are having a good time together.

Kanta-ben

Both characters, Maudie and Kanta-ben are servants of the house and both of them give a comical touch to the film Brave and Kal Ho Na Ho. 

Thus all I can say to the fantastic film; Brave - Bravo !!! :)