The worst things about this Blu-ray is the cover art. It’s horrible. Thankfully Shout Factory usually includes reversible sleeves. I tossed the cardboard outer sleeve and underneath the plastic of the Blu-ray case I turned the paper insert around and now have artwork that more closely resembles the original theatrical poster on display. I mean, the cub looks horribly airbrushed, the focusing is out of whack between the foreground and background, and…. it’s just ugly. Do not judge this release based on the cover.
And the film was released in 1988. It is past the 25th anniversary of the film.
Rewatching The Bear after more than 25 years was interesting. It holds up really well, and while I remember liking it immensely at the time when I first saw it in a movie theater, I couldn’t remember exactly why. What I didn’t realize at the time when I first saw The Bear was its director had previously done some other films that were well put together – Quest For Fire and The Name Of The Rose. Then there is this film, which relies on the actions of its title character rather than forced narration to tell its story.
What a good story it is. A young bear cub is orphaned in an accident that is simply heartbreaking. It is done so well it may be hard to take for younger viewers. This is where the lack of narration comes in. Viewers are forced to empathize with the cub because there are no distractions. By pulling the viewer in this way they are invested in the story much more deeply than they otherwise would.
This young cub finds another adult bear to pal around with, only this particular bear has his own story with a couple of humans. These humans are the source of the film’s only dialogue, and even then it is minimal. The focus of this film is, rightly, on the bears.
For the most part The Bear plays out almost like a documentary. There are a couple of dream sequences that show this isn’t, but they don’t really take the viewer out of the story.
A couple of paragraphs ago I mentioned there is a sequence at the beginning that will be hard for younger viewers to take. Because of the near-documentary style of presentation, because it is so realistically presented, because there isn’t anything to actually detract from the story that doesn’t pander to any audience, The Bear is a great film for pretty much all audiences. I would, however, no let a 5 year old watch this on his own, but instead would watch it with him to explain what is going on and why.
Only one special feature is presented here, a 50 minute look at the making of The Bear. It’s a good featurette, but I would have liked an audio commentary.
Getting past that horrible cover art (and poor math regarding the film’s anniversary) The Bear is a great film for the whole family. And I mean the whole family. This isn’t a cutesy animal film for the kids.