The Brave (1997)

I was really interested in watching this movie, when I first heard about it, back in the late 90's but I was unable to track down a copy until just recently.  I found out that Johnny Depp, for whom this was his directorial debut, and also in large part financed the picture, didn't care for the early negative reviews of it in the American press, after the premiere screening, so he never released the film to theaters in the US nor has it ever been released on DVD or home video in the US.  Strangely, I was in Japan at the time of the initial release of this film, but I never saw that it was in theaters over there, nor have I seen it available on home video or in the video stores there.

I had planned on watching every film that Johnny Depp made, in the 1990s (that is when I had my plan), and I believe I have seen all but two of his films made in the 1990's, but since then I have not kept up with Johnny Depp's films.

I was primarily interested in this film because of the Native American aspect, in that it is supposedly set in a reservation type place and that the characters are themselves supposed to be native Americans, but this film captures nothing of native American life style, or culture.  While there was a single actor of native American decent in this film, and Johnny Depp who plays Raphael, does look vaguely native American, (or, he looks less like a stereotypical caucasian) no other actors are of native American decent, and a large number of them are Latinos, and even some of the music sounds Latino.  The area they are living in, on the side of, and surviving from scavenging from a trash pile, sounds nothing like a reservation or where native Americans would be living, and more like that you would find in the third world.  I didn't see any sign of native American culture in this film, from the way the people acted.  The only attempt at showing native American culture, was a odd extremely short ceremony Raphael participated in after his fight with Luis.

I felt it was very odd that Raphael and his family set up a lot of their furniture outside their house, as it made not sense, because if it were to rain, obviously everything would get ruined, such as the TV.  Also, it seemed really odd that he would waste a large portion of his money on those things, as it would have been better spent on necessities.

While my interest in this film stemmed from the native American aspect, this was clear not something the makers of this film were concerned with.  The reason the characters were created as native Americans was to the term "Brave" which could be used to describe a native American warrior, could as be used to describe how Raphael was brave to sacrifice himself for his family.

One to the things that made me hesitant to watch this film, and even stop half way through and wait a couple of weeks before finally finishing watching the film, was the "snuff" film aspect, which Raphael was supposed to participate in.  This really upsets me, as a concept, first because of the concept of killing for entertainment abhors me, and the concept of torture, equally so, but also the fact that snuff films do not actually exist.  I was perturbed that the film was going to depict the torture and killing of Raphael, as this wasn't something I wanted to see.  I spent the whole film, thinking that Raphael, had to change his mind about going through with it, that staying with his family was by far more important that that money.  I also was expecting some one in the film was going to save Raphael from this horrible deal with the devil he made.  I thought the police of FBI or some one would find out about, and close down the snuff film "studio" or perhaps the priest might stop it, or come up with the money in another way.  But, I guess the point of the film was that at the beginning, Raphael was "dead" and he only came alive again when he could finally provide for his children.  The question the film was posing was, would some really die for their family.  While I can see saving your family is a worthy reason to give up your life, I don't agree this would be a help way to do it.  I would think staying with them and providing for them through all the years of their life would be much more worth while.  I think the real question about giving up your life for your family is more like taking a bullet for them, than the method covered in this film.

At the end of the film, they showed the construction equipment coming and demolishing the housing that the people had set up, showing that Raphael's sacrifice was completely in vain.

It was amazing to see Marlon Brando appear in such a minor film, but his role was quite small (and perhaps even unnecessary), but was a big addition for marketing the film.