FOR DYING OUT LOUD 666

A GAME OF THROWN TO THE WOLVES



BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF (2001)
Samuel Le Bihan, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, Mark Dacascos, Émilie Dequenne, Jérémie Renier, Virginie Darmon
Directed by Christophe Gans
This movie is loosely based on a French urban legend known as the 'Beast of Gévaudan' -- a supposed man-eating, wolf/dog/hyena hybrid that attacked & killed 100+ victims (mostly women & children) in a coastal mountain province of south central France between 1764-67. Set during the reign of Louis XV (24yrs before the French Revolution), an aging Marquis Thomas d'Apcher (also the narrator) is writing his memoirs in a castle while an angry mob is stirring outside. In flashback, we begin with a young woman who is chased, attacked & killed by an unseen creature (similar to skinny-dipping Chrissie Watkins before a rogue Great White makes his acquaintance). Royal knight (and biologist), Chevalier Grégoire de Fronsac, and his companion, Mani (a mystical Iroquois warrior and last of his tribe), arrive on horseback on the outskirts of Gévaudan, where they immediately rescue an elderly man and his daughter being attacked by a group of townsfolk during a rainstorm. Both men (who met while fighting the redcoats, aka the British, in the New World, aka North America; what was then still called the 13 Colonies) have been dispatched to capture the enigmatic, beastly culprit responsible for gruesome killings that have terrified the region, and they are soon befriended by the Marquis, a young nobleman. Because of wildly varying accounts, Fronsac (who is based on the real life wolf hunter, Jean-Charles Marc Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval) is doubtful of the stories & their descriptions. Nonetheless, the investigation has him believing that a large animal is responsible.

Along the way, we meet Captain Duhamel, a wolf-eliminator extraordinaire who is leading the mission to stop the beast; Marianne, the daughter of a Count, and love-interest; Jean-François, her jealous one-armed brother who lost his right limb to a lion while hunting in Africa; and sultry Sylvia, the local bordello's Italian courtesan. After finding a steel fang, and hearing a child saying the creature seemed to have a human controller, Fronsac becomes more unconvinced of a roaming monster likened to a demon, but he feels the baffling clues (which contribute to people being prone to flights of fancy as far as he's concerned) will lead him to the murderer. When Lord de Beauterne, the King's weapons expert, shows up and kills a wolf, Fronsac reluctantly agrees to pass it off as the beast. The carcass is sent back to Paris (a hotbed of arrogant, aristocratic privilege & snobbery) for display where Fronsac is shown a book -- L'Édifiante (The Edifying), and learns of a sinister conspiracy theory involving a disillusioned secret society named The Brotherhood of the Wolf. The outfit use the creature as an instrument of punishment against the ruling King's blasphemous embrace of philosophy, citing that the doctrine of science over religion (in the burgeoning Age of Reason) is heresy. As utter fear from the elusive beast's rampage will undermine public support of the King, the cover-up could allow the Brotherhood's consolidated power to step in to take over France.

Fronsac is warned to keep quiet of this explosive knowledge, and uneasy with both falsehood and potential treason, he is bribed with a high-profile posting in Senegal. Ignoring his superiors, he returns to Gévaudan at the Marquis' request where his study resumes, and the real beast continues to scare the shit out of everyone. When he meets with Marianne to take her to safety, both are attacked by the creature and Fronsac finally sees it with his own eyes, where it kills a man but strangely leaves Marianne alone after sniffing her. Shortly after, Fronsac, Mani (who is harmoniously in touch with nature), and the Marquis head into a forest and set a bunch of elaborate traps. When they try to bag the beast in a clash, they see it has almost human-like intelligence. When the beast is injured but escapes, Mani goes after it alone and discovers a catacomb where it is being kept by the same elderly man, Jean Chastel, and his daughter, La Bavarde, who were encountered earlier. They are in cahoots with the Brotherhood, and he is attacked by Gypsies. He kills a number of them before being shot in the back and taken away. Fronsac is devastated when he finds Mani's body and sees he was tortured to death. When an autopsy reveals a silver bullet pointing to Jean-François, he hits the roof and at the catacombs finds a pile of the conspiracy books. Fronsac kills several Gypsies and later burns Mani's body in keeping with the deceased's native customs. He is then apprehended and imprisoned by the authorities.

In jail, he is visited by Sylvia who tells him she's a Vatican spy sent by Pope Clement XIII to kill Henri Sardis, a conniving priest and leader of the Brotherhood whom His Holiness in Rome has deemed is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and thus trouble for the Papacy. She then poisons Fronsac to keep him quiet of this clandestine information. Sardis wants heartbroken Marianne dead and convinces Jean-François to kill her as a means to cure his incestuous lust. Twisted brother shocks fragile sister telling her that he is the beast's master, and reveals he still has his right arm intact which is heavily scarred and been kept bandaged. Holding him at knifepoint, she refuses his sexual advances but he rapes her. A buried Fronsac who was exhumed by Sylvia's operatives and revived from what was a coma, now gatecrashes a Brotherhood ceremony. In commando battle mode, he kills several of their numbers before his duel-to-the-death showdown with Jean-François. Captain Duhamel and his men make mass arrests, Sylvia offs La Bavarde, and Sardis flees into the mountains where he is killed by a pack of wolves. After Fronsac uses one of Mani's primitive potions to heal a near-catatonic Marianne, he and the Marquis return to the catacombs and find Chastel nursing the wounded beast, where we learn of its sympathetic African origins. Stolen from its home, kept in captivity, and reared to be a savage predator turned loose on the population, Fronsac shoots the dying creature, putting it out of its misery.

We return to the aging Marquis being led to his public execution infront of a huge torch-lit crowd. [The real life counterpart on whom the Marquis is based was supposedly saved from the guillotine by his servants]. In a final flashback (or is it a dream?), we see Fronsac and Marianne aboard a ship and are left to ponder if they reunited to begin a new life of happiness together. This is definitely an entertaining and unconventional werewolf picture for the rampant beast (made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop) is not what our horror imagination will immediately conjure up. [Picture a gumbo of baby dragon, lion, warthog & dinosaur, with hand-made wood/skull/iron/bone-plated armour, also part skinless and of mutated flesh, and draped in scales of retractable thorns & spikes]. Odd to say the least but it doesn't disappoint with its brutal maulings. Director Ang Lee said of his movie CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, that it was a graceful combo of Bruce Lee and Jane Austen. Applied here, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF plays as Asian kung-fu cinema meeting comely & buxom peasant maidens in cleavage-popping gowns; all in a backdrop of DANGEROUS LIASONed, pompadoured intrigue infused with frenetic bursts of spaghetti western violence. And with its slo-mo bad assery of heroes who hardly break a sweat, the incorporation of the fight choreography to its very expositioned, costume-drama, mythological mystery is impressive.

The dark tone and graphic novel-ish mixture of styles (martial arts meets THE MATRIX, and Sergio Leone meets SLEEPY HOLLOW) puts this film on the fringes with its further broad exploration of progressive idealism vs. (a) fundamentalist dogma, (b) institutionalized self-indulgence, (c) disregard of the poor & oppressed, and (d) reactionary bigotry. Such blunt content always walks a fine line of filtered subliminalism through messy politics but thankfully, we are spared heavy-handed messaging & preaching. Of curious note is the presentation of this movie's women. All voluptuous and freedom-seeking, the ladies span being innocent, indiscreet, determined, desperate, sensual, and scheming. Viewed as prizes, property, and babymakers by the prevailing standards of their day, they face punishment when overstepping permittance, and no praise for self-liberation from imprisoning attitudes that held them inherently inferior. And when they get busy in the boudoir, sex -- more than personal pleasure -- is used & represented as an independent outlet in their contrast of striking beauty against the quadruple threat of male deception, corruption, repression, and abomination. In total, while the excessive running time at almost 2½ hours is overlong, the wild & flashy action, lush scenery and rugged terrain close to the LOTR films, and nude Bellucci (which is always a pleasant addition) makes this worth checking out.




ROMASANTA: THE WEREWOLF HUNT (2004)
Julian Sands, Elsa Pataky, David Gant, Maru Valdivielso, Luna McGill, Gary Piquer, John Sharian
Directed by Paco Plaza
This movie is loosely based on Spain's first documented serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta, a travelling salesman who in September 1852, admitted to 13 murders (the post credits say 15) that took place in the Galicia region that borders Portugal. Claiming to be cursed as a shapeshifter that needed to feed his urge to kill, he was dubbed the "Werewolf of Allariz," and the "Tallow Man" for also making soap from his victims' fat -- which he purportedly said made for the best skin care. Much like the true story, the film opens in a small village plagued by puzzling disappearances and then gruesome murders, with naked bodies (mostly women and children) found displaying signs of both vicious animal savagery, and cutting of surgical precision. Romasanta is a vendor in his caravan wagon who pulls into town to ply his wares. He's a smouldering ladie's man who is engaging and charismatic. And unbeknownst to everyone is that he is the monster that has been terrorizing them. As people are afraid to venture into the dreaded forests, superstitious rumors are spreading, and the police in hunting the killer are covering up the deaths to prevent panic but the Inspector brings in Professor Philips, a phrenologist (brain expert) to help in the investigation (and right off the bat, he disturbingly implies some necrophilia has taken place). Bárbara Garcia lives in a remote farmhouse she shared with her widowed, older sister Maria, and young, mute niece Teresa. Maria left with her daughter to marry Romasanta, and already jealously upset at Bárbara's attraction to him (pulling a knife on her to back off (!), joined him on his merchant journeys with an intention of also finding a sign language tutor for Teresa.

But sadistic hubby eventually turned on wife and child, killing them (after displaying his cruelty to birds). In the aftermath of their discovered corpses, Bárbara having been seduced earlier, hooks up with him and resumes their affair when he returns. He tells her Maria and Teresa are doing fine but she soon finds proof pointing to them having met foul play, with him as the slayer. Instead of cowering in paralyzed fear however, she sets out to take him down for destroying her family. Even as another man (a former wandering partner of his who warned her) is arrested for the crimes, her fierce determination for revenge stirs the police to grow a pair. All along, Romasanta has played it cool as a cucumber, and in an attempt to at last stop his blood-spilling, she faces off with him in a cornfield climax. When he's finally apprehended and in custody, he confesses his dark deeds saying he is a lycanthrope, but Professor Philips (whose name in reality is believed to be an alias for Joseph-Pierre Durand de Gros, a French exile living in London) disputes this assertion as nonsense saying that far from being a Devil-ish beast of hell, Romasanta is insane; suffering from mental disease making him not responsible for his actions, and that he can be cured. For its historical presentation, ROMASANTA is comparable to BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF as another (dubbed & subtitled) fanciful, nightmarish faery tale whose territory also delves into both rural isolation with rule from bewildered authority, and psychological explanations for a supernatural occurrence, while straddled by some inaccuracies thanks to the blending of fact & fiction...

[E.g. ROMASANTA features scientific discussion of "genes" even though the coining of the term by Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen was still 50yrs away -- and DNA another 50yrs after that. Oops. Let's just say the script deliberately incorporated the word to streamline a lot of long-winded, complex talk of behaviour being shaped and controlled by chromosomal molecular biology, and/or study of abnormal, hereditary blueprint sequencing]. Combining drama, mystery, suspense, and action, with good cinematography and an atmospheric score that further mixes tragic romanticism (with a strange Red Riding Hood vibe) with court procedural, the movie with its authentic, period-piece look, is admittedly slow-moving (bogged down in large part by the love story) and rather scattered in plot but its low-key subtlety is made up for with fine performances. Sands (who has always looked menacingly lupine anyway) displays a deceptive and hidden pulsing threat, while gorgeous Palatky totally holds her own with expressive screen presence that switches from vulnerability to vengeance. The werewolf transformation is not a typically same, paint-by-numbers offering. It's particularly excellent (apparently more majority make-up than CGI) for how the villain actually changes into a proper form of non-new age, straight up wolf. And then just as incredibly reverts from animal back to human. Seriously, it's terrific. ROMASANTA's script is by Alfredo Conde, who also wrote the fictional novel 'The Uncertain Memoirs of a Galician Wolfman: Romasanta'. Conde himself is a descendant of one of the doctors involved in the original trial which lasted 7 months.

[As well as stating he had an accomplice named Antonio whose existence was never verified, Romasanta was found guilty in April 1853 but acquitted of 4 of the murders that were credited to real wolf attacks. He was condemned to be executed by garotte but in May, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by a Royal Order from Queen Isabella II herself. Although disputed by some researchers, Romasanta is believed to have died in December 1863, at the age of 53, allegedly waiting a full pardon. His case also served to inspire the first portrayal of his life in the Spanish 1970 movie, THE WOLF'S FOREST]. Even as this movie pulls from the annals of 19th Century true crime, for the sake of entertainment, whether Romasanta is indeed a creature, or if his claim is pure invention because it's something a cold, calculating sociopath would say, there is an ambiguity left open to interpretation. Also commendable is the decision to have the fiend be captured. Without much formulaic tampering, the overwhelming ending of countless werewolf movies conclude with a final showdown of the monster being chased, cornered, and killed on a full moon-lit night. Here, ROMASANTA's bravely different depiction daringly breaks the mold in this horror subgenre. Bypassing generic clichés, it goes for broke by taking a next step to explore the nature of delusion and compulsion in the bizarre tribunal. In closing, the movie is interesting and worthwhile should you seek it out. With that said, if you're looking for direct, beastly lines akin to AN AMERICAN WEREWEOLF IN LONDON, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, or THE HOWLING, you might find this dull & disappointing. If however you're more prone to straying into a bit of spiritual unusuality like WOLFEN, you may find this unique treatment sharing those parallels, highly satisfying.