Brother Bear [* * * * *]

I really liked this movie. It was very simplistic, but then it's meant for kids.

The story is set in America where a native american has a clash of values - their reverence for nature and a boy who wanted to be a man.

Manliness is often at odds with reason and reverence - it's mistaken by youth to be rough, cruel and hard. This one teaches a boy to find manhood in acting through love.

The boy kills a bear in revenge for her eating some fish he'd carelessly left lying around. The Great Spirit turns him into a bear and he meets a lost cub who becomes his brother. As he gets to know the cub, he finds out the bear he killed was it's mother.

The boy becomes a man when he chooses to remain a bear to take care of the cub and repair the damage he'd done. Nice karmic reverberations.

-sigh- when will Indians make movies like this for their young? All this senseless cruelty to street animals by boys and girls who could have easily followed a greater cycle through wisdom. We have the Panchatantra and Jataka Tales and so much mythology to support the larger connections of Life: responsibility is love is wo/manhood. Tiresome waiting for change that never comes.:)