Brotherhood of the Wolf
Christophe Gans
Initial release:
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images c/o kinorium.com |
For a cult film based on a real-life werewolf panic in 18th-century France, you would be forgiven for thinking that Christophe Gans' Brotherhood of the Wolf would be a serious take on the traditional werewolf legend. Unfortunately for almost everyone, it came out after The Matrix.
The legend of the “Beast of Gévaudan,” a supposed werewolf (likely a roaming pack of regular wolves) did a lot to shape modern werewolf lore. Brotherhood of the Wolf, brought to you by the director who would eventually go on to direct the first Silent Hill film, initially promises to go this direction, but as with so many promising films, it derails in a hurry. There’s a lot to this movie that’s infuriating, and the back half of the movie is where it all comes to a head. So let’s discuss these issues in order, hm?
First,
the good: it’s gorgeous. South-central France is depicted with all the
haunting beauty, deep fog and dark woods befitting a gothic tale.
Costumes aren’t skimped on, either. (Bloodborne fans may recognize a certain tricorn-hat/coat collar over face aesthetic.) But the first hint that this is not the film you sat down for is very shortly
after it begins, when one of our high-collared horseriders gets into an actual literal martial arts fight with a bunch of assholes. This kind of
swashbuckling nonsense persists throughout the film. Before long you start to realize this movie really
likes the “magical kung fu Native American” trope. Mark Dacascos isn’t
even Native American! (He’s Chinese/Japanese/Filipino/Spanish/Irish,
which is admittedly quite the combo, but it’s clear they cast him
because he just looked “native” enough.) The worst part is, as soon as I
realized he was the token ethnic friend (and the victim of some
fetishization on the part of the local hoi polloi… who were also just
plain racist in general?) I knew he wouldn’t last the movie. Spoilers: I was right.
There’s also the rather tacked-on romance subplot. The male lead, ordinarily a competent professional learned in all manner of disciplines, turns into a fumbling, unserious fuckboy when presented with a pretty redhead noblewoman, and it’s maddening. Worse is the fact that while he’s in town for the beast hunt, he spends his nights in bed with an expensive, mysterious courtesan who is so aggressively the femme fatale archetype she could have come out of central casting. This eventually, predictably, bites him in the ass.
The
actual hunt for the beast is pretty entertaining, though if you don’t
like bad things happening to hapless wolves, maybe give this one a miss.
The hunters try and determine the nature of the beast and figure out
where it nests, while political machinations threaten the whole thing. It’s
these political machinations that, in a better film, would be the
primary driver of the plot. Unfortunately the whole thing’s an
incoherent mess of conspiracy; the titular “Brotherhood” is basically
some weirdos who think France isn’t Christian enough, and the beast — a lion in a scary getup — is
their weapon, to scare people back to Jesus. The
most infuriating part is the reveal of the beast’s handler; a couple of
times, we see the handler’s hand, all long nails and knotted flesh.
turns out, the noblewoman’s one-armed brother has been doing everything
with one arm behind his back all along, including swinging a whipsword
made of bone around. He's creepy and strutting and weird and effeminate in a way that's intended to evoke disgust; when he rapes his sister in a climactic scene it's treated as almost expected of him. In a movie full of unnecessary scenes, this is the apex of
unnecessary, because it serves almost no purpose rather than to put the
hapless noblewoman into some kind of coma that only our male lead can
wake her from, Snow White style. It’s ridiculous.
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| when u kill all the werewoofs |
The overuse of dramatic slo-mo for everything, the script that goes off the rails almost immediately, the crazy mishmash of genres that don’t fit together… it’s a disappointment, to be honest with you. That’s not even getting into how the Beast seemingly only targets women. I dunno, it’s dumb. You might like it for its aggressively post-Matrix stupidity. personally I was expecting something a little more thoughtful than “French Pirates of the Caribbean with less charisma.” At least it's pretty.