Brotherhood of the Wolf

4/4

Starring: Samuel le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Emilie Dequenne, Jeremie Renier, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci

Rated R for Strong Violence and Gore and Sexuality/Nudity

People frequently ask me what my favorite movie is.  For the longest time, I couldn’t answer.  How can I choose one from the hundreds, perhaps thousands that I have seen?  Sure, I’ve loved many films, but is it really possible to identify one as my absolute favorite?  Then I realized that the answer was right in front of me.  “Brotherhood of the Wolf” literally has everything; a great, twisty plot, bone crunching action, likable characters that are sufficiently developed, lots of blood and gore, and some gratuitous sex and nudity.  This admission isn’t going to make me popular with the cinephiles (as a “film,” in the truest sense of the word, it’s just a competently made movie with absolutely nothing of value beneath the surface), but as pure entertainment, it doesn’t get much better.

France, 1764.  In the province of Gevudan, a mysterious beast has been terrorizing the populace by maiming and killing women and children without mercy.  News of the monster has reached Paris, and the king sends two men, a naturalist named Gregoire de Fronsac (le Bihan) and his Indian blood brother, Mani (Dacascos) to hunt and kill the creature, and bring it back to Paris to be studied.  Of course, when they get there, they soon realize that nothing is what it seems.

Everything about this movie is first-rate.  The acting is excellent, the action scenes are directed with flair, and the film oozes atmosphere.  What’s more, the film’s storyline is anything but predictable.  While it’s true that there was a wolf who killed a number of people in France around the same time that the film takes place, labeling this movie as “based on a true story” is about as true as saying that “Stargate” is based on Ancient Egyptian mythology.

Samuel le Bihan plays the part of the hero perfectly.  In addition to being a naturalist, he is also an intellectual known for his biting wit; both of those qualities are evident in the film.  It doesn’t take long for him to figure out that there’s more to the story than initially meets the eye.  Fronsac doesn’t have any astonishing and unfounded leaps of intuition that have plagued many characters in films of this sort.  Fronsac’s wit is also very sharp; some of his one-liners and antics are openly funny.  Mark Dacascos doesn’t say much, but he looks fearsome and he’s terrific in the action scenes; he also shows some skill at non-vocal emoting, and for an American, he speaks credible French.

The characters they meet in Gevudan are no less interesting.  There’s Marianne (Dequenne), the daughter of a wealthy aristocrat whom Fronsac begins to woo (the scene where he introduces himself to her is hilarious).  Not only is she beautiful, but le Bihan and Dequenne have smoldering chemistry with each other, both as actors and as characters.  Marianne is a feisty girl, and she’s not going to let just any man sweep her off her feet.  Jeremie Renier is also very good as Thomas d’Apcher, another young aristocrat who follows Fronsac around like a groupie.

The two most well-known actors on this side of the Atlantic, Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci (who are married in real life, but share no scenes together in the film), are just as good as their co-stars.  Cassel plays Marianne’s brother Jean-Francois, who lost his arm a few years ago in Africa.  Cassel is at his weird best in the role, playing the character with both sympathy and mystery.  Bellucci has what is arguably the juiciest part; she plays Sylvia, the prostitute who has an affinity for the strange and who may know more about what is going on than anyone.

Christophe Gans deserves as much credit for the film’s success as his stars.  Stylishly directed and containing more atmosphere than any movie in the past 20 years, Gans’ work is truly incredible.  In addition to being able to sufficiently flesh out his characters within the context of what is really an action movie (something that has eclipsed many filmmakers), he is also adept at sleight-of-hand.  There’s no possible way to predict what happens further down along the road.  A person may be able to predict the “whodunit,” but not why or how.

At two and a half hours, this is a fairly lengthy motion picture.  It doesn’t seem like it, however.  

“Brotherhood of the Wolf” has the capacity to absorb from frame one, and it sticks with you long after the film is over.  I have watched the film many, many times, and it gets better with each successive viewing.  There aren’t many movies that can do that.

About the Director’s Cut: The film is something of a cult classic over in the US (according to Wikipedia, it grossed over $11 million over here), which is great, although I have to admit that it’s kind of sad that people are so against subtitles and foreign films.  To be quite honest, there’s nothing here for the art-house crowd; substitute in known-actors and make it in English, and it would be a guaranteed monster hit at the box office.

The director’s cut contains about ten minutes of extra footage, give or take.  Some of it is just minute extensions of some sequences, but there are two full scenes that are added in (although I believe a line from the voice-over has been cut out for some reason).  I was wondering how a filmmaker could improve a film that is, in my mind, already perfect.  It turns out that you can’t.  The extra scenes are really unnecessary and don’t add much that we don’t already know.  They only serve to pad out the running time and cause the carefully built momentum to drag.  Ironically, some of the deleted scenes that Gans talks about in the Extra Features are the ones that should have been left in, rather than the ones he put into the Director’s Cut.  The theatrical version of the film is definite four-star film, but because of the extra scenes the Director’s Cut goes down to a three-and-a-half.