"Brotherhood of the Wolf"

"Brotherhood of the Wolf" (also known as "Le Pacte des Loups", 2001) is a well-known movie in the circles I run in. Outside of the those circles, this movie was largely ignored. The average American movie watcher does not concern themselves with French cinema. I for one think it would be nice if everyone did concern themselves with an occasional foreign movie. They might learn to appreciate good cinema, and not drool over yet another Michael Bay-splosions production.

The year is 1766. Or so. Well, the movie actually starts at an undisclosed time during the French Revolution (1789-1799) with the elder Marquis Thomas d'Apcher recounting the tale, then we jump back in time about 20 years. The Beast of Gévaudan is terrorizing the province of Gévaudan (which historically took place during a three year period: 1764-1767). So that puts us roughly in the right time, though no dates are given at any point. Even the twenty years earlier thing is never explicitly stated. At one point it is mentioned the Beast has been terrorizing Gévaudan for two years.

Right, the plot. Grégoire de Fronsac - a botanist and taxidermist - is sent to Gévaudan to deal with the Beast, and brings his close ally - the Native American Mani (Mark Dacascos) - with him. Here he meets mixed opinions on the Beast, including what it is. We meet many nobles in the area including Father Sardis, Jean-Francois (Vincent Cassel who we just saw a few days ago in "Black Swan"), Marianne, and Thomas d'Apcher (when he was in his 20's). Fronsac spends a good portion of the movie hunting the beast, and trying to put together puzzle pieces that don't seem to fit.

"Brotherhood of the Wolf" goes through a few phases during it's two hours and twenty minutes. It starts out with Fronsac investigating the Beast in what seems like a detective movie. Almost like a classic Sherlock Holmes with a Native American martial arts master sidekick. Once they start to figure out more about the Beast, it starts to turn into an more of an action monster movie. The Beast starts to make appearances, and we even get a really good action sequence where Fronsac, Mani, and Thomas attempt to capture the Beast. After a nice series of action sequences involving the Beast, we don't see it again and it becomes a high-intensity action movie with some fantasy elements. You know, like a sword-whip made of bone.

This movie is tremendous. This was only my second time watching this movie, and it's been a few years since I've seen it. I had actually forgotten just about all of this movie, other than I enjoyed it. We found it at F.Y.E. during a crazy sale, and remembered enjoying it so we picked it up. So glad we did pick it up. Very happy we were watching through the collection, because it may have been a long time before we watched this again.

Check it out. But do yourself a favor and watch it in French. Foreign films are always better in their original language. Except "The Host" (we're covering it later, don't worry) - that becomes a monster/comedy in English. The CGI is a bit wonky, but this was 2001 when CGI started becoming a big thing, it always looked fake, and we insisted on putting it on everything. This film is pretty engaging, so don't let subtitles stand in your way.