The Bears’ Famous Inva­sion of Sici­ly – first look review

The poster for the 53^rd Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, held in 2000, shows a giant, gym­nas­tic fig­ure emerg­ing from with­in the screen into the the­atre space beyond. It’s an image of one thing becom­ing anoth­er, a 2D fig­ure enter­ing a 3D space; of form, trans­form­ing. The poster was designed by illus­tra­tor and com­ic artist Loren­zo Mat­tot­ti, who returns to Cannes 19 years on to tack­le the same task as his sculp­tur­al poster sub­ject: mov­ing from one form to anoth­er with his direc­to­r­i­al debut, The Bears’ Famous Inva­sion of Sici­ly.

Adapt­ed from a 1945 children’s book of the same name by Dino Buz­za­ti, the film fol­lows two trav­el­ling enter­tain­ers who stum­ble into a cave and pla­cate the bear they find with­in, telling him a tale of hero­ics, rebel­lion and mag­ic. They begin their rou­tine, reveal­ing that the tit­u­lar famous attack is ini­ti­at­ed after one of their young, Tonio, is caught by humans and tak­en to their city.

Win­ter comes and under the rule of Leonce, the kid­napped Tonio’s father, the bears descend from their moun­tain and invade the human’s realm in the hope of find­ing their kin, fur­ther lured by the promise of warmth and food (even though they’ve heard that humans enjoy ravi­o­li stuffed with ​“any­thing”, includ­ing sheep’s eyes and bogies).

Mattotti’s skill as a design­er, along with a team of ani­ma­tors he has described as ​“monas­tic scribes”, comes to life when the worlds of bear and human col­lide. The bears’ moun­tains appear draped in silk, there’s no harsh edges or gul­lies, just nev­er end­ing S‑waves of a sledge-goer’s dream. The bears them­selves are sim­ple, ele­gant crea­tures; with­in these alpine scenes their sleek, almost wood-carved forms seem at home among the snow and trees. The humans, how­ev­er, cast harsh shad­ows against the land­scape, all angles and spin­dles and unnat­ur­al colours.

As the armies clash, Mat­tot­ti aban­dons the spa­tial rules and rhythms of any kind of real­i­ty. Instead they adopt the dizzy­ing, colour-wheel aes­thet­ic of clas­sic Hol­ly­wood musi­cals, a styl­is­tic diver­sion made a few times in the film, each more sat­is­fy­ing than the last. It’s nature har­mon­is­ing with our griz­zly gang: cho­rus lines of bears dance on the edge of end­less ice shelves; lunar size snow­balls sail, syn­chro­nise and flat­ten human bat­tal­ions. Lat­er, in an exquis­ite cross-cut sequence, sky­lines dis­ap­pear, replaced with har­le­quin colours and the cir­cus of war slid­ing across the screen in car­toon­ish fashion.

Despite descend­ing their moun­tain, the bears arrival in the city sees them reach the peak of their pow­er. It’s here that the sto­ry returns to its ora­tors, the cave bound duo and their large, fur­ry audi­ence of one. It feels like it’s end­ing, but the film takes a sur­pris­ing turn, address­ing the after­math of fairy tale suc­cess and becom­ing a coda of pow­er and vio­lent cycles, no mat­ter the species who wields them. As both sides recoil to their start­ing posi­tions and the snow set­tles, there’s a melan­choly to the fall­out – a reminder of the destruc­tion that comes from bear­ing arms.