Plot:
The film Brave,released in 2012, tells a story of an adventurous princess called Merida. She is no traditional princess at all; she longs for freedom, enjoys riding horses in the forest and firing arrows. However her mother is a traditional queen and wants to arrange marriage for her. Under this circumstance, Merida resorts to a witch for help and indeliberately casts a curse and turns her mother and brothers into bears which leads to a chaos in her kingdom. Regretfully, she takes her mother into the forest to find a cure. During this adventure, they all changed and started to understand each other. With the help of her brothers, Merida brings her mother and brothers back to human in the end.
Comment:
This film, which won both the Academy Award the Golden Globe, deserves its credits. It is a film that celebrates freedom and the power of women.Unlike those stereotypical princesses, Merida feels quite real: she is naughty when she is young, and does not want to follow orders like all the teenagers in the world. She is more like an average woman but with unique characters.Normal as Merida is, she is a role model for women in the 21th Century for she is not only an independent woman, but is brave enough to try to change her fate. She likes archery which skill seems have been labeled as “Men-Only”; she fights with traditions, instead of following the path her mother chooses for her, she livesher life the way she likes.
You may have noticed the two main characters in this film are both not men. The main conflict is between Merida and her mother, yet what finally solves everything is the understanding between them two. The fact that Merida’s mother starts to act freely, forgetting all the rules that a queen have to follow, such as table manners, is also an important part of the film —which is about breaking through the shackles of tradition and finding the true self. On the other hand, male character seems becomes less important.
The film does not end with the arrival the Merida’s “Mr. Right” once again shows that women is no longer centered with men like some princesses in old times, such asAurora or Snow White. It is not just because they now do not need princes to save them or even simply accompany them; it is because they have become so independent that they can be happy by themselves, that they have more important goals and dreams, that they can take art in and defeat men in the fields where men used to be good at and women did not step in, and that they are able to find bravery and help to build a better world.