Monday, February 2, 2009

Brotherhood of the Wolf

It has been a long and painful journey, but I have finally managed to locate a French film which, instead of making me regret my choice of major, I actually enjoyed. That film is Le Pacte des Loups, or Brotherhood of the Wolf.

I've long counted cryptozoology among my interests and have been a fan of both the martial arts and monster movie genres for as long as I can remember. Brotherhood of the Wolf is a wonderful mix of all three, and yet manages to avoid being cheesy. Not even the scene where an immense, armored, and CGI-rendered beast is chased through the French countryside by an Iroquois with extensive knowledge of kung-fu is cheesy.

The film doesn't put forth a serious explanation for what the beast of Gévaudan really was, instead option for a variation on the conspiracy theories surrounding Jean Chastel, who historically killed the second, and last, beast believed to have been responsible for the killings. I can hardly fault the filmmakers here; having the beast be a particularly large and agressive wolf would be anticlimactic and make for an absolutely horrible vehicle for any message.

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