Brotherhood of the Wolf: A retrospective

While I wait to either finish one of the many novels I'm reading or see 'Clash of the Titans' (Damn! The! Gods!), I need something to criticise, so I decided to examine the French film 'Brotherhood of the Wolf', upon watching it again. Readers should be warned of my weakness for silly, OTT historical horror.

My God, though, this film is awesome. OK, it's not perfect. It's silly in places. I find it difficult to empathise with a lot of the characters. The Native American who inexplicably knows anachronistic martial arts and is so in tune with nature is such a backwards stereotype, I felt slightly embarrassed watching it.

But the visuals, acting and tone are wonderful. 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' is a fictionalised account of the true story of the Beast of Gevaudan, supposed perpetrator of a series of deaths in the Eighteenth Century. The Beast was supposedly originally hunted down in either 1765 or 1767 (depending on which was considered the 'real' Beast) and most accounts of the time claim it was a large wolf, but a documentary ('The Real Wolfman', History Channel, 2009) claims it was an Asian Hyena. This film concerns Gregoire de Fronsac (Samuel le Bihan), a expert in zoology and his companion, a Native American called Mani, who investigate the Beast, becoming embroiled in politics, intrigue and love along the way.



This is a French 'Sleepy Hollow', though slower-building and more sophisticated, with the same narrative beats as foule murders occur, an expert is brought in to solve them, winning the love of a local aristocratic girl, and finally the truth is revealed, dun dun dun. This does have the rather interesting framing tale of an aristocrat (the older version of a young character in the main narrative) recalling the story as he waits for the mob to come and take him to the guillotine, which links suprisingly well with the political undercurrents of the main narrative.

Of the actors, Vincent Cassel is my absolute favourite. As the effeminate and cruel brother of the love interest, he manipulates the viewer's (and the other characters') assumptions about Jean-Francois de Morangias with terrifying ease. Monica Belluci (Cassel's offscreen wife) looks darn sexy and pouts very well and all that, but I felt her character was of such broad strokes that the writers failed to engage her talent. The love interest (Emilie Dequenne) was surprisingly spunky, but suffered a bit from being an object of affection. With the main characters, Fronsac was...all right. He was nice and noble, but the bit where he warpaints up almost into blackface and runs around the forest (in a ninja revenge scene very similar to that in '28 Days Later') was just funny. With Mani, I felt that there were several places where he just seemed to be an excuse for a fight scene/a 'noble savage' trope, but the actor managed to convey an incredible range of brooding emotions through his eyes alone. Over all, he was a bit hard done by, but it's a surprisingly nuanced performance when looked back on.

The Beast itself was a bit of a special effects fail, even given the fact that 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' was made in 2001, and I'm not entirely convinced by the explanation of its true nature. The conspiracy plotline kind of passed me by, but honestly, the film makers are quite happy to let those of us without their intelligences to sit back and watch the exciting bits of the story play out. This is a terrific film that is pretty widely-known in the geek community, but really deserves wider acknowledgement. I insist on showing it to everyone who hasn't seen it, and watch it myself on a reasonably regular basis. I just really hope it never gets a Hollywood remake.