Red
Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves (1984) surprised me--I expected a modern werewolf story but watched instead a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. The fairy tale is surrounded by a rich chiaroscuro of settings, the menacing woods alive visually with mists, little animals, many of them symbolic like toads and snakes, or cocks. The Wolf is a sinister-looking huntsman in eighteenth century dress. He knocks off Grandma's (Angela Lansbury's) head, bursting it into white plaster against the mantlepiece. We're in a realm of fantasy throughout the film since the girl who acts as Red in most of the movie is a picked-on younger sister in the modern world having an elaborate dream.
Wolves represent wild nature, but also men seen as a threat to innocence, as represented by Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson). She turns away the advances of the blacksmith's son, only to join, in the dream anyway, with the huntsman-turned-wolf.
Vivid and gory special effects bring this movie away from something for kids to watch. A man peeling away his skin as he transforms into a wolf is quite gross. The gore gets balanced, though, by beautiful images, the pacing lending itself well to suspense, furthered by the overall mysteriousness of the plot, even as the Red Riding Hood story becomes increasingly recognizable.
Sarah Patterson is quite good in her film debut, just twelve years old. She's only been in three other movies, for whatever reason. David Warner, not playing a villain for once, plays her father. Terence Stamp has a cameo.
My favorite shot is at the beginning, in the modern day setting. The family's German Shepard runs in a long tracking shot at top speed through a wood. Brisk and energetic, this splendid image of a graceful and beautiful animal draws the viewer into the story. Dogs came from wolves, and some humans, maybe, did too.
Implied, not subtly, is the sexual theme of the Little Red Riding Hood tale. A girl becoming a woman, the wolf eliminating the old (Grandma) and advancing upon the young. To be eaten by a wolf, or any other animal, is to participate in the living and dying of nature; the onset of sexual desire in girls and boys is that nature of dying away from childhood, but living too in order to become adults.
An image of a wolf smashing through a windowpane, glass fragments landing amid Rosaleen's toys and dolls, illustrates loss of innocence, or virginity. Even so, for its lack of subtlety, it's not a bad move on the director's part.
Neil Jordan should be congratulated for making a peculiar horror/fairy tale movie without making it always obvious. It's a mysterious film with great visuals, a good musical score, sets, and excellently executed animal action.
Vic Neptune
Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves (1984) surprised me--I expected a modern werewolf story but watched instead a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. The fairy tale is surrounded by a rich chiaroscuro of settings, the menacing woods alive visually with mists, little animals, many of them symbolic like toads and snakes, or cocks. The Wolf is a sinister-looking huntsman in eighteenth century dress. He knocks off Grandma's (Angela Lansbury's) head, bursting it into white plaster against the mantlepiece. We're in a realm of fantasy throughout the film since the girl who acts as Red in most of the movie is a picked-on younger sister in the modern world having an elaborate dream.
Wolves represent wild nature, but also men seen as a threat to innocence, as represented by Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson). She turns away the advances of the blacksmith's son, only to join, in the dream anyway, with the huntsman-turned-wolf.
Vivid and gory special effects bring this movie away from something for kids to watch. A man peeling away his skin as he transforms into a wolf is quite gross. The gore gets balanced, though, by beautiful images, the pacing lending itself well to suspense, furthered by the overall mysteriousness of the plot, even as the Red Riding Hood story becomes increasingly recognizable.
Sarah Patterson is quite good in her film debut, just twelve years old. She's only been in three other movies, for whatever reason. David Warner, not playing a villain for once, plays her father. Terence Stamp has a cameo.
My favorite shot is at the beginning, in the modern day setting. The family's German Shepard runs in a long tracking shot at top speed through a wood. Brisk and energetic, this splendid image of a graceful and beautiful animal draws the viewer into the story. Dogs came from wolves, and some humans, maybe, did too.
Implied, not subtly, is the sexual theme of the Little Red Riding Hood tale. A girl becoming a woman, the wolf eliminating the old (Grandma) and advancing upon the young. To be eaten by a wolf, or any other animal, is to participate in the living and dying of nature; the onset of sexual desire in girls and boys is that nature of dying away from childhood, but living too in order to become adults.
An image of a wolf smashing through a windowpane, glass fragments landing amid Rosaleen's toys and dolls, illustrates loss of innocence, or virginity. Even so, for its lack of subtlety, it's not a bad move on the director's part.
Neil Jordan should be congratulated for making a peculiar horror/fairy tale movie without making it always obvious. It's a mysterious film with great visuals, a good musical score, sets, and excellently executed animal action.
Vic Neptune
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