SOUND REPLY - BRAVE | KAIROS GLOBAL | AUGUST 2019

Author: Joseph Anthraper

‘Authority’ is a word that carries a lot of baggage associated with it. From times immemorial, abuse of authority and trust has been a recurring theme in human history. Even as I write, most of the challenges facing the Church around the world is down to the abuse of power and authority in the hierarchical church, referred by Pope Francis as ‘clericalism, our ugliest perversion’. Yet paradoxically, God has created a world in which, without authority, there can never be a true flourishing of the one thing we all yearn for – freedom. As Bishop Barron says, it is precisely the rules of a game and the authority of a referee that makes it such a joy to play and watch.

Brave is an animated movie from Pixar, that deals with these two seemingly contrasting forces – parental authority, and the desire of a human heart for the freedom to choose a life of one’s own. 

The movie narrates the story of Princess Merida in Medieval Scotland, the daughter of King Fergus and Queen Elinor. Merida loves archery and on her sixth birthday, her father gifts her a bow of her own. But soon after Fergus would lose a leg while protecting his family as they are attacked by the demon bear Mor’du. Merida grows up to be a profoundly skilled archer. Yet despite the best efforts, schooling and nurturing of Queen Elinor, Merida never quite becomes the ‘Lady’ that Elinor aspires her to be. As per the tradition of their clan, Elinor arranges for the betrothal of Merida to one of the heirs of King Fergus’s allies, and they all arrive to compete in the Highland games to win Merida’s hand in marriage. However, Merida absolutely resents marriage and wants Elinor to give her the freedom to be who she wants to be and not force her into marriage. This results in a heated argument and Merida storms out into the forest, where she meets an elderly witch.

Merida insists upon a spell to change her mother and thus her fate, and finally the witch relents and gives Merida a cake that would ‘change her mother’. Returning to the palace Merida gives her mother the cake, which transforms Elinor into a bear – retaining her consciousness, though unable to speak. Merida quickly leads her mother back into the forest where she initially met the witch, only to find that the witch is gone leaving her an oracle to “look inside and mend the bond torn by pride”, or else the spell would be permanent by the second sunrise. As Merida and Elinor ponder on what to do, the wasps that initially led her to the witch appear again, this time leading her to the cave of Mor’du. In the ensuing struggle to flee from there, Merida realises that Mor’du is in fact the eldest son in the legend her mother had told her of an ancient King and his four sons, the son whose pride had turned him into a demon bear. Not wanting the same to happen to her mother, the rest of the story follows Merida’s frantic efforts to undo the wrong that her pride has caused and thus turn her mother back into a human.

The beauty of Brave is in the transformation that happens to both Elinor and Merida as they make this journey together. At the beginning of the movie, we see both complaining about the other not listening. However as the journey unfolds, each begin to see the value of the other person and her perspective. Thus we find Elinor realising the necessity to let her children take decisions for themselves, and Merida perceiving her pride and the futility of a pursuit for freedom that had blinded her to her mother, her repentance fulfilling the oracle.

In its unique way, Brave is an intensely Catholic movie, dealing with seemingly contrasting motifs as tradition and myth, authority and freedom, pride, repentance and true happiness, family and self-giving love – and surprisingly for a mainstream Hollywood movie, hitting just the right tone, and in the process painting a beautiful portrait of mother-daughter relationship.

Joseph Anthraper lives in Southampton with his wife Mahima and kids – Anna-Claire, John-Paul & Samuel. He loves reading, movies and apologetics and is part of the Kairos Global Editorial Council.