So there's this animated Danish movie called The Great Bear that has been quietly making the festival rounds. I only today accidentally discovered the trailer, whose accompanying synopsis promises quite the story. But it's the animation itself that has me wondering what kind of legend The Great Bear has in store for it.
It's not terrible (the synopsis's self-comparison to Princess Mononoke is overreaching a tad), but it does seem to occupy a creative ZIP code of which perhaps Delgo is the most notorious resident. And unlike Crocosaurus or other malevolent mutant species found in the B-cinema wild, this purports to be a moody ursine mass more in line with King Kong -- gentle with his young human cargo, yet on the defensive against hunters and predators. I'd even venture that this is what last year's appalling Yogi Bear should have been, which is to say: He should have been on fire.
This all kind of comes up in the synopsis:
The bear in question is not Yogi or Boo-Boo, a panda or a polar bear, nor a koala. He's bigger than a brontosaurus and pine trees grow on his back; yet he's cuddlier than a new puppy. Six-year-old Sophie thinks he's adorable, but her older brother Jonathan is scared -- after all, it's his fault they're lost in the forbidden forest. He should have taken care of his sibling, but he didn't, and now she's riding around on the snout of a massive creature. Jonathan sets out to save Sophie -- although the bright-as-a-button tot clearly doesn't need his help. A crazy hunter enlists his help to find the bear and belatedly Jonathan realises little Sophie was right all along. This charming Nordic tale is populated with wonderful characters and is beautifully animated in a style reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki's eco-fairy tale Princess Mononoke.
"Charming Nordic tale"! Maybe so, but all I know from the trailer is that that is the biggest, loudest, most flaming bear I have ever seen.