"Can you savages mate with white women?" "All women are the same colour when the candle blows out"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0237534/
French Historical drama can be hard to follow, slow and uninteresting... Brotherhood of the Wolf is none of these things! It is history with a large dose of action, romance and politics. The world of the film, france in the 1700's, is well recreated, the audience gets a peek into the exclusive lives of the aristocracy who are in this case at a wrong. The frame narrative is a nice way of including narration however the political upheaval in the frame story is not one I was aware of therefore the end just confused me. The two protagonists are a classic double act, one a people person and the other a fighter and an Apache in touch with nature. Despite their conventional roles they look awesome and Gregoire is ever the silver tongued genius. Mani's fight scenes are something a kin to The Matrix, with slomotion and freeze frame being used to punctuate parts of the action. The colour in the film is really nice... that sounds weird but the rich reds, creams and golds in contrast to the cold whites and blues are iconically beautiful and exactly what an audience has come to expect from french cinema.
The themes and narrative are equally intelligent, as the peasants are attacked by a beast in the narrative it is the aristocracy and the church come under attack from the film, which paints them as corrupt and evil. The theme of racism is prevalent as you would expect from a film set in the 1700's and Gans makes a conscious effort to bat away any of the racist characters with the common sense and acceptance of the more identifiable and likable characters. There is also something classically fairy tale about the film, even though it is based on true events, the mysticism, simple characters and the villainy of .... (i will let u find out) give the fairytale narrative whilst the bold colours and playing with time make the film feel hyper real and wonderfully vibrant.
It was a random buy and a random watch but I really enjoyed it, I also chose to watch it in french... english dubs are awful.
7.5/10
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