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TORONTO: Prankster splooges all over BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF
Hey folks, Harry here... When Universal opens this French can of whupass onto your local screen, I hope to God that you get out there and behold a magnificient creation. This isn't a straight Horror film. It's a period action adventure martial arts romance horror flick! And Mani is a character that you women will squeeze your thighs over, and guys... You'll go, "FUCKING A!!!!" when he unleashes Indian wrath upon peasants and assorted dumbshits. He rules! Check out Prankster's review...
LE PACTE DES LOUPS (The Brotherhood of the Wolf)
Directed by Christophe Gans, Starring Samuel Le Bihan, Marc Dacascos
I was going to do a package of horror film reviews, since the last 5 films
I've seen at the Toronto FilmFest have all been horror flicks of one kind or
another. But this one deserves a separate review. Guess what? The Devil's
Backbone is NOT the best foreign genre/horror flick to emerge from this
years' festival.
Some time before the French Revolution, the provincial French town of
Gavaunais was menaced by a mysterious Beast. The King's investigator dragged
home the carcass of a huge wolf, but that didn't stop the killings. That
much is fact, or at least popular legend. This film tells the story of
naturologist Gregoire de Fronsac (Le Bihan), just returned from the war in
New France, who, with his Iroquois companion Mani (Dacascos), digs deeper
into the legend and finds... not what they were expecting.
Ooooh boy. Harry's going to love this one. [HARRY NOTE: YO! PRANKSTER! CLICK HERE BUDDY BOY, I REVIEWED THIS FUCKING AWESOME FILM A WHILE BACK!!!! IT RULES!]Hopefully a lot of you guys will
too.
Take Sleepy Hollow. Remove most of the (numerous) flaws and add a story that
actually has some coherence, plus more genuine scares.
Then throw in martial arts.
Then add a kickass Native American, lots of weird editing (like a less
epileptic Baz Luhrman), a more epic plotline, and dub the whole thing in
French. Voila.
Three thoughts war for headspace while watching most scenes in this film:
"This is SO FREAKIN‚ COOL!!"
"This is the most ridiculous thing ever."
"Wow... never seen THAT before."
The comparison to Sleepy Hollow is quite unavoidable. This movie is set in
the 1700s in a remote, eerie town being menaced by a seemingly supernatural
killer. A young investigator, a man of science who also represents
governmental authority, shows up to get to the bottom of it, and encounters
a conspiracy among the town leaders and clues that the evil force may be
directed by an evil human will.
He also falls in love with the daughter of an important man in town, and
gains a young companion who helps him solve the mystery.
If this sounds TOO close for your liking, rest assured that this film is a
thing of beauty for genre fans. Every choice that Sleepy Hollow muffed,
Brotherhood gets exactly right.
Well, maybe not exactly. This movie does retain the over-the-top nature of a
Hammer film. It's loud, sexy, drenched in gore, and doesn't hold back with
the expressionist film editing. And, oh yeah, there's kung fu.
But given all that, it's handled in about as slick and intelligent a fashion
possible. Director Gans knows ALL the canards, clichés, and assumptions
genre fans will make going in, and he plays our brains like damaged
harpsichords. The word 'werewolf' (loup-garou) is very carefully avoided
until quite a ways in. The word 'wolf' is in the title. So it MUST be a
werewolf movie.
Right?
Well, I'm not telling. It's actually one of the many, many mysteries and
reversals of this film. I'm not saying it's NOT a werewolf movie, either;
merely that Gans keeps us wondering without calling attention to the fact
that we're wondering. I will say this, though: the movie's mythology is a
lot more imaginative than we're used to seeing in American horror films,
even good ones. It's deep and involved and amazingly literate.
Another thing that doesn't happen for a long while is the appearance of The
Beast. And, amazingly enough, it doesn't bother you. This movie has a lot of
things on its mind, and is about far more than the standard "hunt the
monster in an isolated location". It also deals with certain fundamentals of
human nature without the pat and clichéd homilies of a standard werewolf
film.
Not that I'm saying it IS a werewolf film.
But what will rock you where you sit, even as you giggle at the silliness of
it all, are the inventive and elaborate action scenes. They're so much the
better for being played out against the canvas of human relationships and
buried secrets - again, unlike Sleepy Hollow, the mystery actually means
something. So when the Beast first appears, there's a genuine impact - which
is shortly followed by the AMAZING scene where Fronsac and Mani finally put
their plan into action and attempt to strike back against the Beast.
Yet another element this movie has over Hollow is the idea that maybe the
scientist has the right idea, and maybe human ingenuity CAN triumph over
this seemingly implacable critter. It makes it a LOT easier to root for the
characters knowing they're not going to split up and wander off down dark
corridors, and that when they go after the Beast they're going to be damned
good and ready.
And the fight scenes. When two of them (both involving Mani, who says little
and lays the smackdown on much) appeared in the first 20 minutes, I was a
tad doubtful, especially since they're photographed in "arty" slo-mo and
slightly Gladiator-ish flurry cuts. And how do you fight a Beast barehanded,
even if you're a Black Belt? Isn't this a werewolf movie? (Not that I'm
saying it ISN'T.)
And while big, portentious fight sequences will always have an element of
cheese, they're handled here in such a cheerfully insane yet non-detractive
way that you can't help but grin like an idiot when they start to come into
play in the later half of the movie. (And thank Buddha, everyone here OBEYS
THE FRICKIN‚ LAWS OF PHYSICS when they tussle.)
The performances are all round good, Le Bihan makes for an affable hero
who's both capable and smart, Emilie Dequenne is so cute it hurts my brain,
and Dacascos... well, although there's the occasional slip into "Noble Savage"
cliché, largely due to the character's limited dialogue, there's little
doubt that Mani is the coolest Indian ever to grace a genre film. He's
devilishly smart, he conveys passion with a glance, he kicks ass and takes
names, and I'm not 100% sure but I think he might be the first Native
American character in the history of film to actually get laid. ("Chief
giving his daughter to the hero in marriage" doesn't count.)
What can I say about this film? It's the horror buff's answer to Crouching
Tiger. It's a monster movie by David Lean. I'm trying not to oversell, but I
don't think anyone who's reading this is going to regret tracking down this
film at whatever farflung independent theater it ends up playing in. It goes
beyond being the best horror flick I've seen in a long time.
Not that I'm saying it isn't.
Prankster
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i love good movies, don't get me wrong. especially horror. but ever since i spent five months telling everyone Jeepers Creepers was going to rock sooo hard, and well, didn't, i'm afraid i cannot believe anyone ever again. i'll see em, but i don't wanna be hurt by another shitty movie. not that jeepers was, but it wasn't what i thought. i shoulda listened to my brother when he said "i'll never see a movie named jeepers creepers. its just too stupid of a name." looks like steroids have made him much smarter.
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Sep 15, 2001 12:30:58 AM CDT
Dang, I had so wanted it to be a crossbreed American werewolf in
by kung-fu bot
So I'm to understand there's a whole frig less supernatural in this than expected? Hmmmm, this Indian guy better kick mas ass.
(First and I aint even a Fan-boy?) -
Kung-Fu and "wire-fu" are now officially OVERUSED in movies that don't necessarily need them. Even if this turns out to be a really good flick.
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but damn if that guy said it isn't nescessarily a werewolf movie again I was going to kick the shit out of my computer badass indian style. Except for those repetetive lines super review, I cannot wait to see this thing. But I thought that it was only going to play in New York(my heart goes out to them) and L.A.? I'm in Dallas, is there any hope for me seeing this thing? Also I thought Sleepy Hollow was a great movie, so if I get the chance to see Brotherhood of the Wolf i'll walk out black and blue. I can't remember when i've wanted my ass kicked by a movie so bad, and a French one at that ooh lah lah
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As long as it has a real monster in it. I want a monster that I can see and revel in it's coolness (and hopefully scariness). I HATE movies that just have humans, humans bore me to death, compared to a real monster (werewolf or not). That's why I liked Sleepy Hollow. It had a real cool monster (ghost, whatever)
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If I understand the movie's website correctly, Jim Henson's Creature Shop is involved. What does that tell ya?
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Nixon45, hey, you may hate it. I can't help it. This is just my honest reaction to the film. Hey, maybe I was suckered in by the Toronto FilmFest atmosphere. Kung Fu-Bot and FarFrumWorkin, I'm not saying it's NOT a werewolf flick. :) The question of whether or not it's a werewolf flick is one of the central mysteries, so (this is for you, 007-11) I HAD to say it to drive home the fact that you won't know whether this is a werewolf flick or not for quite some time. Don't leap to EITHER conclusion. However, one way or another, it does have a Beast, and yes Jim Henson Prods. worked on creature effects. So there you go.
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Sep 15, 2001 10:41:02 AM CDT
The majority of the reviews for this movie have been positive.
by huneybee
I hope it is played at the film festival here in November. I very much want to see this and Amelie.____Bee
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What the film world needs is remake of the old Hammer flic "Captain Kronos-vampire hunter". Now there was a cool, mysterious, samurai sword wielding, prussian pothead.
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i admit i might be a little jaded about this movie, but it could be due to the horrendous summer of movies that sucked, or that many movies that had quite a bit of hype turned out less than. maybe i'm building them up too much in my head. but the AICN staff seemed to really enjoy and recommend Jeepers Creepers, as well as Ghost World, as well as The Others, and i might be retarded but these movies were just good, or in some ways just ok, and i expected more from the way they were praised. So its not this review or film in particular, which sounds awesome, but the fact that this is another movie AICN has been continuously saying "ROCKS! ROCKS! ROCKS!" and i'm probably the only one who wonders "as much as....?" anyway, God bless america. land of ok movies.
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I too watched this at the Toronto film fest. First of the sound was amazing, but the sound fx were the same repeated through out the film. The second fight with Mani, where he is egged on by the wild girl,was just dumb.It was a big silly mess of a film,even the score sucked! At the start of the film it already showed him kickin' ass, so we knew he was a bad-ass. What was with the wild girl? They never did anything with her!!*besides making her drop to the ground and foam at the mouth.* I have been waiting to see this film all year and was waay let down mon! What a lunch bag letdown of the year!!I could say that I liked this film, but that would be *LION!* *snicker*
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Just ta let ya know, Mark Decascos does not use wires for doing his flips & jumps!It says so on his own web site!
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It sounds to damn awesome to miss. I don't give a shit what you nay-sayers think.
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