1984
Director- Neil Jordan
Cast- Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Brian Glover, Stephen Rea, Terence Stamp, Kathryn Pogson, Danielle Dax
This moody, atmospheric, and often surreal lycanthropy themed anthology is brought to us by Neil Jordan who later rose to fame with The Crying Game. It presents several fairy tales, all the dreams of Rosaleen (the film’s young star, Sarah Patterson). It is a very literate film filled with allusions, allegory and symbolism.
This moody, atmospheric, and often surreal lycanthropy themed anthology is brought to us by Neil Jordan who later rose to fame with The Crying Game. It presents several fairy tales, all the dreams of Rosaleen (the film’s young star, Sarah Patterson). It is a very literate film filled with allusions, allegory and symbolism.
The first vignette is a dream sequence where Rosaleen’s mean older sister is stalked through the woods by a pack of wolves. The environment is filled with incongruous objects like a wedding dress and a doll house, all objects from Rosaleen’s waking life intruding upon her dreams. The next story is about a village girl who marries a traveling man (Rea). On their wedding night he steps out for a bit but then disappears with a pack of wolves. He returns years later and is none too happy that she has remarried.
Next are several stories within stories that mix in warnings about sex and wolves, and warnings about the dangers of immorality masked as practical advice (don’t stray from the path or you might meet the devil in the woods) including a cameo by General Zod himself, Terance Stamp, as a Luciferan figure giving a young lad a virility potion. The warnings about sex and wolves are provided by Rosaleen’s menacing grandmother, Angela Lansbury. If you only know her from Murder She Wrote or Beauty and the Beast, you may have a hard time picturing her as menacing, but if that’s the case, you need to watch The Manchurian Candidate.
In what I think is the most unsettling vignette, a group of aristocrats are celebrating the wedding of a young couple. A very pregnant peasant girl shows up and insinuates that the groom has had his way with her in the past. She curses the lot of them, turning them into wolves.
The centerpiece, which provided the inspiration for the movie’s poster, has Rosaleen as Red Riding Hood, meeting a charming and sinister huntsman in the woods who she meets again at granny’s house. It has a brief but very memorable sequence as the handsome stranger reveals his lupine nature.
The final story shows a she-wolf from another world entering ours via a well. After being wounded she seeks shelter from the village priest. She transforms from wolf to a naked, feral, girl (Danielle Dax), who sneaks back to the well to re-enter her world.
The rules of lycanthropy (silver bullets, full moons, werewolf bites etc.) have been fixed in our minds by Hollywood movies, but in the old days those rules were much more flexible. Lycanthropy was a malediction that might be bestowed upon someone for wickedness or just bad luck. The Company of Wolves, like the Oliver Reed picture Curse of the Werewolf, mentions being a bastard born on Christmas Day as something that is likely to cause lycanthropy.
Of course the real centerpiece of the cast is Sarah Patterson. For being only 13 years old she does a good job with complex material and holds her own alongside powerful costars. Most of these stories revolve around sexuality (in that sideways referential way of old fairy tales), some more directly (Rosaleen being curious after seeing her parents have sex) some indirectly, (the handsome huntsman trying to steal a kiss). Patterson was a rather mature looking 13 year old which keeps the film from seeming creepy but still allowed for the childlike naïveté needed for a fairy story. She played Snow White a few years later but otherwise had (for whatever reason) a very limited movie career.
No comments:
Post a Comment