The Bear

British Columbia, 1885. A grizzly cub is left alone when its mother dies in a rockslide. It meets a large wounded Kodiak and follows him. Two hunters are in the same forest, after a trophy. At the end one of them, after what he has met, does not pull the trigger. Jean-Jacques Annaud directed, from James Oliver Curwood's 1916 novel The Grizzly King. What sets it apart is that there is almost no dialogue and the score is kept minimal; the story is carried entirely by how the animals move. The big bear is played by Bart the Bear, a trained Kodiak standing nine feet, alongside a young cub. It was shot in the Dolomites and several trainers worked with the animals. It passed 100 million dollars worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 88 percent. Annaud won the Cesar for Best Director. A campaign to have Bart nominated for Best Actor was rejected by the Academy. Who it is for: viewers who like animal films, nature photography and storytelling without words. Who it is not for: anyone uneasy about animals being directed this closely. Since the film rests on animal performance, that question sits at its centre.