Werewolves! Karate! Frilly Shirts!

[malsperanza]

Who here has seen the French movie Brotherhood of the Wolf? Anyone? I am in love! It is my new favorite B movie. It somehow manages to have nearly everything I love in a B movie, all mooshed together.

1) Set in the late 18th c. This means:

a) Men with long hair in queues, which they can then pull loose and shake. I love it when men do this quintessentially feminine thing.

b) Frilly shirts, tricorne hats... tricorne hats in the rain, great big wigs, long leather duster coats with big cuffs and sweeping skirts; and of course the all-important tall leather boots with cuffed tops.

c) Galloping on horseback; galloping on horseback in the rain.

d) Chateaux, torchlight. Bach in the soundtrack.

e) Borzois.

2) Martial arts

a) Hard to explain how a movie set in 1770s rural France and involving folklore, the Legend of the Beast, corrupt Catholics, satanism, incest, and shape-changing can also include a lot of kung fu (some of it nearly naked, yay, and some in frilly shirts and tricorne hats, double yay). But it does, and I am happy.

b) Also, kung fu with exotic weapons such as singlesticks, two-pronged garden implements, snaky swordy things.

c) Body paint and tats. Again, how this fits into 18th-c France is a little hard to follow, but nevermind.

d) Kung fu in the rain.

3) Gorgeous landscapes, often bleak and wintry, or fogbound and shimmering with silver and green lights, or silent and filled with the whispers of an animate Nature, watching. Also meadows at twilight; meadows at twilight in the rain. Also, slo-mo of horse hoofs splashing through same. And small flocks of birds flying up suddenly into sunlight.

4) Rain This does not require explanation.

The plot? Oh, the plot is something about a werewolf or something that is killing people in rural France. There is a lot of fancy stuff about the Enlightenment vs. the Dark and Ancient Forces of Nature, and the Ancien Regime vs. the Spirit of the New (i.e. looming French Rev), and Rationalism vs. the Old Ways, when humans and animals understood one another, and so on. There is a bit of a love story, and ample slash in the subtext. There is the wonderful Vincent Cassel, little known in the US (unless you saw him as Camille Desmoulins in the otherwise wretched "Jefferson in Paris"). And there is the veryverypretty Mark Dacascos, doing his veryverypretty thang. But really, who cares about the plot?

Comments

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

I saw it! At like the Ziegfeld. It was IMMENSE. Really bizarre--never saw anything quite like it.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Wah! The Ziegfeld! Am so jealous. Best screen in NYC, good dolby, red plush seats... But, so, tell me, because am terribly confused: is this a great movie or has my taste deteriorated to the point where I can't tell the difference? I admit I've been watching La Femme Nikita reruns nonstop for the past 8 weeks, but I didn't think the ill effects would be quite so sudden or so complete. (Note to self: Visit Guggenheim Museum asap, stand in front of Kandinskys, see if they still look good or if you now find them boring and have the urge to look for little faces in them.)

I mean, why is everyone in the first half of the movie wearing red and in the second half blue? Is that cool or merely goofy?

And is the Pope a good guy or a bad guy in this thing? I mean, how bad could he be if he's got Monica Bellucci, the original Bitch Goddess in black leather, working for him, razor-spiked fan and all? Or rather, how good could he be?

And there is a fascinating little hommage to "Night of the Hunter" right in the middle: a view into a cave where a child is hiding from the Beast, and we see a pair of bunnies cowering. Totally Charles Laughton.

And an hommage also to "Day of the Jackal," with the shooting pumpkins to make them explode and ooze.

And, like, sometimes the movie is all Dangerous Liaisons and stylish and clever and literate, with obscure references to Voltaire and Buffon. ("Have you read L'Ingenu?" "My dear Marquis, isn't it a little late in the evening to be discussing philosophy?" "You're right, let's discuss theater instead.") But then sometimes it is all Nunchuks!QueenKisscostumes!Reallybad Animatronics! With the world's worst foley overdubbing, so that every thwap sounds like someone punching a fist into a bowl of fruit salad.

And sometimes it seems like a remake of Eyes Wide Shut or Poe's Masque of the Red Death, all carnival masks and Marquis de Sade fin-d'ancien-regime decadence (yeah, yeah, incest and whatnot).

Why do all the bad guy henchmen have Jack Sparrow hair decorations, bones and beads and such?

I remember seeing Mark Dacascos in some terrible TV ninja show, and thought he was mighty dishy then, but he's even better as Mysterious Iroquois Shaman Guy, even though the whole Indian Shaman Friend of the Earth thing is the world's worst essentializing racial cliche (no surprise that the French are suckers for it), not to mention that the actor is, like, Hawaiian, not even close to Mohock.

This is possibly the most over-the-top movie I've ever seen. I think I will lie down now and take about 6 ibuprofen.

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I really don't remember it. That happens to me a lot with movies. Just that it was overpowering and bizarre--as you say, over the top. I don't get all your references, though I have seen "NIght of the Hunter"--I think--that's the one with Robert Mitchum as the murdering preacher, right? love and hate tatooed across the knuckles of his hands...

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

I don't get all your references

That's because I frequently carry on conversations so obscure that I myself have no idea what I'm talking about. Wuh.

though I have seen "Night of the Hunter"--I think--that's the one with Robert Mitchum as the murdering preacher, right? love and hate tatooed across the knuckles of his hands...

Right. The only movie Charles Laughton ever directed, and well worth renting if you haven't seen it in a while. It's an odd movie--half serious film, half garish noir thriller. As you may recall, it's about an evil man called the Preacher who chases two small children through the wilderness to find out where their father hid some money and then to kill them. Among other things, it's full of weird stylized images of animals and the state of nature at night (clouds of insects swarming, a cobweb). The children flee on a boat down a river at night, and as they pass, we see lots of little vignettes of innocent animals--frogs, moths, owls, tortoises, and lastly a pair of bunnies, out in the wild late at night alone, vulnerable, but somehow safe, because danger comes not from nature, which is benign, but from "civilization"--the Preacher and his murderous religious-fanatic kind.

In "Brotherhood of the Wolf" there's a similar narrative line about nature vs civilization, with the Beast being either a symbol of the terrifying and uncontrolled State of Nature or, conversely, the violence and bestiality of men. At one point the Beast attacks two children and kills one, but the other escapes by hiding in a small cave that is shown to her by a white wolf, who is a friend (or possibly brother) of the Indian Shaman Guy. When the Indian Shaman Guy searches for her, he looks in the cave and first sees 2 small bunnies--a shot that is a direct citation of a similar shot of 2 bunnies in "Night of the Hunter." It's so direct that it has to be conscious. Anyway, Night of the Hunter is one of those cult films that directors love to cite. (Spike Lee put the tats on the hands in "Do The Right Thing.")

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

Right, right, I remember the animals on the river. Intense. And isn't there a voice of god or angels or something among the stars, or am I just mixing in bits of It's a Wonderful Life, its spiritual opposite?

Likewise, in trying to recall Brotherhood, I keep getting flashes of ... I think... Ridicule, which I found disappointing. But I do remember something about werewolves, and LotR-style lushness, and some of the themes you mention.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

isn't there a voice of god or angels or something among the stars, or am I just mixing in bits of It's a Wonderful Life, its spiritual opposite?

:-D Nice.

Yes, sort of; there are strange twinking starfields and a lot of general voiceover singing of eerie hymns and children's songs, including a lullaby that says, in part, "Fear is just a dream/so dream, Little One, dream." Eeeee. As Lillian Gish says, "It's a hard world for little things."

Likewise, in trying to recall Brotherhood, I keep getting flashes of ... I think... Ridicule, which I found disappointing.

Me too. I am a whore for movies set in the 18th c, but most of them do not live up to potential. (Dangerous Liaisons was a fine exception, and I will always love the original Scarlet Pimpernel.)

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

(Dangerous Liaisons was a fine exception, and I will always love the original Scarlet Pimpernel.

loves them both. Leslie Howard! But Merle Oberon wasn't a match for him.

[disprove.livejournal.com]

I saw it! Unfortunately can't offer insightful commentary as I was too busy giggling at the slashy subtexts to remember much of the movie. Not that the two -- giving insightful commentaries and giggling at slashy subtexts -- are mutually exclusive of each other (*points in your direction* Well, not that you GIGGLE), just that in my case, it IS.

Er, what was I going to say again? Oh right. Plot? What plot?

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

W00t! Slashy subtext was only barely sub. And who would not feel slashy toward the beautiful and magical and longhaired Iroquois Shaman Guy? I mean, he wears leather leggings that stop at the upper thigh. He brings small children back from the dead. He hesitates ever so slightly before beating the crap out of women who are trying to kill him. He dances with wolves--and unlike some other ill-advised actors who try this, does not look like a moronic klutz when doing so. Anyone who has traveled for years in his company, as Less Beautiful French Guy has done, is bound to be deep in love.

There is also a second slash subtext involving Vincent Cassel, the lupine and predatory Creepy but Beautiful Brother. I love Vincent Cassel; I even watched the unwatchable "The Messenger" (about Joan of Arc) because he played Gilles de Rais (AKA Bluebeard). Admittedly, a lot of fast-forwarding took place. I was hoping in this one he'd turn out to be the Sekrit Hero, but should have known that the missing arm meant that this could not be. Some Hollywood tropes are not to be messed with, and the Evil One-Armed Man is one.

As for giggling, I wish I could claim to be chortling fiendishly like the Jabberwock, or snickering cleverly like Snape, or cackling madly like Dr Lizardo, but alas, I am merely giggling.