I’m glad that they translated the film’s title into English. If they left it in French and let the film play throughout the art houses across the country, this film would’ve been a big surprise to a lot of people who are used to a different type of French import. I can’t say this is like any other French film I’ve seen, but unfortunately it is like a lot of other films I’ve seen.

I saw in the ads that this film has been compared to “Jaws” more than once. It didn’t take me long to see why. This film’s opening scene is a brilliant land based remake of “Jaws” opening scene. We see a bloodied peasant woman running through the woods, fear clearly in her eyes. She comes to a large boulder and tries to climb it. From the point of the view of the top of the boulder we see her just reach the top when something below grabs her and starts to violently shake her back and forth, shaking her to death, before slamming her body into the rock. Also like “Jaws”, we will not see the beast that did this for most of the film.

“The Brotherhood of the Wolf” (actual title “Le Pacte des loups”) is loosely based on a true story, but one probably unknown to almost all in the U.S., so the film never proclaims this. The real Beast of Gevaudan legend takes place between 1764 and 1767 when over 100 victims were killed by a strange beast roaming the French countryside. Some victims escaped and told the tale of something that was wolf-life, but much more demonic. It was considered to be a wolf when a large wolf was killed by the government’s hunters and put on display. However, once more killings happened, the legend grew even stronger about an unholy monster.

In this film we see Gregoire de Fronsac, a French naturalist, who has returned from New France (AKA Canada) with Mani, an Iroquois native whom he calls his brother. He has been asked by the government to study the beast when it is killed. He is a skilled taxidermist, as well as well versed in many other of the enlightened sciences. He also knows kung fu, which might look weird to the French peasants, if not for the fact that everyone in the countryside has skills that look lifted directly out of the Matrix. If you think this type of fighting looks out of place in a period piece like this, you would be quite right.

We also quickly meet a suspected witch, and her father who can heal horses. The film’s finale could have been a lot different had these two not met the two ‘heroes’ so early in the film. This is where we get our first martial arts scene. If they wanted to create an exciting fight scene, they did everything wrong here. I would have been willing to forgive the anachronistic fighting style had it been done well, or interesting. What we see here are kicks in slow motion, that become a freeze frame, and then we see bodies launched a dozen feet through the air. None of the moves are even that exciting to me.

As the movie progresses we move into the houses of the nobility of France, the homes of peasants, a house of prostitution, and eventually King Louis XV’s court itself. We get a copious amount of beautiful scenes throughout the French countryside. We meet about a dozen more characters, and I unfortunately had a hard time keeping up with who and what many of them were. This could be just my fault for not being able to pay enough attention, or how subtitles can sometimes make it difficult to tell who is saying what to whom, but I think the film would still have been confusing had it been done in English.

Character motivations are too contradictory for me to believe that character development was the most important thing for the filmmakers. A lot could have been done with the contrasting viewpoints of Gregoire and Mani. The enlightened science man knocked religion and fantasies, but has no problems with his Indian brother taking mushrooms, talking to trees, and sprinkling magic herbs onto the lips of sick people to heal them.

None of the actors were immediately familiar to me, but all were good. Mani the Indian was played by the same person who starred in the TV version of “The Crow”. Monica Belluci has an unusual role, which I believe could be considered to be a secret agent working for the Pope. This is even stranger when thinking back, we realize that we first met her as a hooker working in a wh*rehouse.

Conflicts like these abound throughout the film. It was never made clear at the end of the film why the beast is attacking random peasants, who are probably very pious, when there was supposed to be an underlying motivation of causing political discord. The audience I was with debated several times over whether or not the beast was incased in an armor, was a wolf, a lion, or none of the above. I got the feeling that it was an African wolf incased in a metal and wood exo-skeleton, but that really doesn’t seem right either. Why couldn’t they have been a little more specific about the creature’s origin’s then they were?

The beast was CGI a lot of the time, but was also a robotic creation by the Jim Henson Muppet Group. This is easily the most fearsome thing to come out of the Henson Group ever. (Has anything even slightly malevolent been created by this group since “The Dark Crystal” so many years ago?). Some scenes with it work very well. I really liked the scene where Gregoire is slowly riding his horse through a village and as the camera changes angles, we can see the beast getting closer and closer to him, but not quite reaching him. The next scene with the beast arising out of a wine cellar is also very well done.

The real star of the film to me is the cinematography. Even when the film is slow, it is always beautiful to look at. As annoying as the multiple freeze frame shots were, it did give me a moment to study the details in the frame. As much as I hate subtitles, I almost wish the film had allowed me to read less, and focus more on the full screen by being dubbed. It reminded me a bit of “The Last of the Mohicans”, and many scenes were reminiscent of “Sleepy Hollow”. Two shots looked incredibly like a Parrish painting come to life.

There are some great camera angles, and many clever fades. One sure to be talked about in every review is a naked woman’s chest and face fading into similar looking snow covered mountains. I also particularly liked a shot of the beast jaws opened wide reflected in the eyes of one of its victims.

The biggest problem I had with this film is the horrible pacing. I don’t easily knock a film for being too long, but I can’t help but feel that the film would have been 10% shorter had they dispelled with all the freeze frames. On top of that, the film often moves quickly through scenes that it shouldn’t be, and vice versa. Around the middle mark I was thinking that the movie was too slow, and too boring for me to like it. Then around the 90 minute mark it really picked up by becoming a more traditional action film. The last 45 minutes do tie some of the loose ends up enough for me to think that upon second viewing I will like the movie more. For now though, I’m only giving the movie 3˝ stars. It probably would only have been 2˝ stars if it didn’t look as incredible as it does.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older