Christophe Gans’s Brotherhood of the Wolf has artifice working shamelessly to and against its favor. Think Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans by way of the Wachowskis’ The Matrix, with a little Original Sin thrown in for good measure. Its pre-revolutionary angst is never less than ludicrous, and its artistry isn’t quite as consistently Grimm as Sleepy Hollow’s, but it’s so outrageously trashy that it’s impossible to resist.
Before Jack ripped prostitutes to pieces in the Whitechapel district of London, the Beast of Gévaudan was tearing into peasant women and innocent children on the slopes of southern France. If Jack signaled the 20th century, Brotherhood of the Wolf’s titular beast portends the guillotine’s glory days after Louis XV sends philosopher/scientist Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan) and his Iroquois blood brother, Mani (Mark Dacascos), to smoke the beast out of its cave only to stumble across a ludicrous web of spiritual-political twists and turns.
Fronsac and Mani appear on the scene shortly after the beast cracks a woman’s spine against a cliff. No less ostentatious than the film’s violence is its characterizations: Upon arriving in the province of Gévaudan, Mani catches the attention of a peasant woman soon before she strokes a horse and swaps saliva with a couple of knife-wielding freaks. That’s the French for you. They eventually head to the local brothel, where Mani strikes out and Fronsac hits pay dirt with Monica Bellucci’s Sylvia, whose drawing-blood shtick out-divas Angelina Jolie’s.
For his part, Gans seems intent on out-crossing Luc Besson’s ecstatic Messenger with all the Jesus iconography. The stoic Mani may be able to raise the dead, but the film’s uppity French bastards have no patience for him. In the end, his spirituality is little more than an irrelevant appendage on the film’s smackdown treaty. Gans’s use of slow-mo in the middle of a shot wears thin soon after Mani does the crouching tiger with the town’s local oafs, and while the story’s bourgeois-as-conspirators revelation is beside the point, you may find yourself applauding one fight sequence for the way the director channels his inner John Woo.
Brotherhood of the Wolf is an odd duck. Inscrutably referred to in the feminine case, the titular wolf appears halfway through the film in all her digital glory, by which point Gans’s imagery, alternately painterly and schizophrenic, will have long left you discombobulated. There are eight or nine films here, all spliced together to form what suggests a Final Fantasy game beholden to slipshod evocations of politics and spirituality. There’s incest, scalping, bulging biceps, bouncing cleavage, and a slew of expertly choreographed peasant deaths. Not all of it soars, but you may find yourself applauding what may be the most delirious graphic match in movie history: a cross-fade between Bellucci’s left breast and a snowy hilltop.
Image/Sound
Fans of Brotherhood of the Wolf will be crestfallen to learn that this collector’s edition features an old scan. Presented in 1080p high-definition widescreen, the film has a fairly wan, flat look that does its rich period setting no favors. The brighter hues of the lavish costumes pop well enough, but interior scenes are lacking in finer details and black levels are host to a bunch of problems, especially crushing. This is a major issue considering that so much of Brotherhood of the Wolf takes place in candle-lit and shadowy settings. Outdoor scenes bathed by natural light translate a bit better, but again, there’s no getting around that this edition looks conspicuously out of date. The audio hasn’t been cleaned up either, though that’s a less bothersome issue, with three different tracks to choose from, two English dubs and the original French. Annoyingly, the original French isn’t the default when you pop the disc in, but as the preferred track, it does the trick, with the 5.1 mix bolstering the heart-throbbing intensity of the action sequences and the adventurous spirit of Joseph LoDuca’s score.
Extras
This disc only contains the 150-minute “director’s cut” of Brotherhood of the Wolf, which, to some, may be worth the list price, though this version has been available on disc since 2008. Sadly, there also isn’t a single new extra on offer that hasn’t already been present on a previous release. Included here are deleted scenes with introductions by Gans, two making-of documentaries, and a look at the actual documented case that inspired the film, plus a theatrical trailer. These are all by and large worthwhile watches, but those who own prior editions of the film already know that. Most egregious of all is the lack of a commentary of any sort. More times than not, that’s always a missed opportunity, but 19 years since the film’s original U.S. theatrical release, releasing a so-called collector’s edition without a single cast, crew member, or scholar on hand to discuss its legacy is peculiar at best.
Overall
The newest release of Christophe Gans’s cult film will leave you howling for something better.
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