TWO BROTHERS
France, 2004, 104 minutes, Colour.
Guy Pearce, Jean Claude Dreyfus, Freddie Highmore.
Directed by Jean Jacques Annaud.
In the late 1980s, Jean Jacques Annaud directed the impressive nature film, The Bear. That was its simple title. This time his focus is on tigers but the title is Two Brothers. He wants us to look at the animals in comparison with human beings, to think of the animals like human beings and respond to their power, their might, their playfulness, their emotions and memories as if they were human. The film is also a plea for the conservation of the tigers whose population numbers are drastically reduced from one hundred years ago.
The tiger are best and the location scenery is impressive too. The humans, on the other hand, led by Guy Pearce as an adventurer-trader, are less well-rounded in characterisation than the tigers. In fact, most of them are more than a little shifty: greedy villagers who want to get rid of the tigers who prey on their animals, French officials who feel that they are lost in a distant outpost, circus people who could not care less about their animals, a prince who concludes that to be as impressive as his father, he has to be cruel and organises a kind of Coliseum combat in a local arena between the two tiger brothers. The appeal to the cruelty and curiosity of the human spectators is rather alarming.
But it’s the memory of the magnificent tigers that lingers.
1. The work of Annaud? His success with The Bear? His attention to presenting tigers on-screen?
2. The use of actual tigers, in the wild, trained? The use of some animatronic tigers? The impact of presenting tigers, fully grown, cubs on-screen?
3. The settings: Indochina at the beginning of the 20th century, the remoteness of Cambodia, the jungles, the villages, the ruins of the temples? The animals in the wild? The excavation of statues and their being auctioned in Europe? The Colonial regime, the cities and markets, the palaces? Politics? The musical score?
4. The title, the focus on the two young cubs? Audience response to the tigers, the making of the tigers anthropomorphic?
5. The opening, the jungle, the majesty of the tigers, roaming the wild? The contrast with ‘civilisation’? The auction, the elephant tusks, the statuary? Mc Crory and his role as an adventurer, hunter, author? His return to Indochina?
6. The adult tigers, the birth of the cubs, the parents and their care for the cubs? The encounter with the humans? The male tiger being shot, carried on a trestle as a trophy? The villagers and their wanting to be rid of the tigers who preyed on their animals? The female tiger, her care of the cubs? The cubs and their playing, the confrontation with the animal, the cub climbing the tree, coming down, timidity, courage? Mc Crory and his taking of one of the cubs, his tending it, its sucking his finger, his giving it the sweets? Its being taken into care when he was arrested? Its being sold to the circus? The other cub and its escape from the hunters?
7. The parallel lives of the cubs, Kumal and his being put in the circus, being trained to go through fiery hoops? His lassitude? The brutality of the trainers? The contrast with Sangha, his being taken when his mother was wounded, with the envoy, Raoul and his looking after Sangha, Sangha and the torment of the dog, destroying the dog? His having to be taken away, put in the underground zoo, kept savage?
8. The mother, wounded in the ear, wandering the wild? The cubs and their growth into adulthood, their being pitted against each other in the arena, their rediscovering each other, playing, escaping? Mc Crory and his hunting them again, Raoul and his not wanting them harmed? The difficulty of their not being able to hunt in the wild? Raoul and his talking to Sangha, Mc Crory and his meeting Kumal? Their being trapped by the fire, their being let go? Rejoining their mother in the wild?
9. The humans, more two-dimensional than the animals? Mc Crory, hunter, writer, adventurer? With the tigers, put in prison, the envoy releasing him? His going with the prince, the hunt, the wounding of the tiger, the taking of Sangha? His presence at the fight, his wanting to buy Kumal, his walking out? Leading the final hunt, the discussion with Raoul, his letting the tigers go into the wild?
10. Normandin and his family, his role in politics, with the prince? His household? Raoul and the tiger, his mother not wanting him to play with it, the savaging of the dog, her getting rid of the tiger? The envoy and his ambitions for service in Spain? The family portrait?
11. The prince, comparisons with his father, his fiancée, his confronting Sangha underground, his wanting the gladiatorial combat, his being disappointed? His fiancée and her wanting the jewels, his putting the necklace around Sangha’s neck?
12. The circus people, Zerbino and his cruelty, the use of the tigers, the imprisonment, selling the tiger for the fight, urging the fight?
13. The humans watching the fight in the kind of gladiatorial arena? The animals playing, the humans running away fearful?
14. The people of Indochina, the people in the village, the exchange of money, the military, the wild animals, the bounties on the animals? The hunting of the animals?
15. The final information about tigers, their being exterminated, the plea for the protection of animals?
