The Company Of Wolves (1984): Review

                                          Figure 1: The Company Of Wolves Poster

The film is directed by Neil Jordan and is based on the classic fairytale “Red Riding Hood”. The film starts with a girl dreaming in her bed. The whole movie is about a dream , it’s a little bit confusing. Only the first scenes of the movie are real. The dream take us to a little village and in a forest where everything happens. Rosaleen the girl in the dream is told by her grandmother who plays the role of the advisor to her granddaughter  ''Beware of wind fallen apples and of men whose eyebrows meet.'' She also knows a thing or two about wolves. '' The worst kind of wolf is hairy on the inside''. Her grandmother wants to warn her for her sex innocent and to beware of wolves, never trust men, and always follow the path through the forest.  The whole film is about symbolism and metaphors. The scenes are quite darky with weird colors.

Figure 2: The Forest

Red color is used in most scenes,  apple, moon , lipstick in order to seduce the audience and put them into a different experience. The director is known about his dark scenes and his gothic images. Rosaleen needs to take a basket of goods through the woods to her grandmother and on her way she encounters an attractive huntsman whose eyebrows meet. The huntsman challenges her by saying to her that he can find the way to her grandmother’s house before she can .We can see in the forest some symbolic animals that symbolize people, the snake and the frog that mirror feelings. ''The sexual and womanly innuendos suggested by the Little Red Riding Hood tale are all here: from wolves and their ‘call of nature’ to Rosaleen’s first discovery of a mirror, lipstick, and eggs that hatch into baby dolls.''(Kristin Battestella, 2009). During the whole movie we think and feel that we are in a dream. The hunter instead of dying is transforming into his wolf shape. The transformation of the hunter isn’t the kind of transformation we have seen in other movies. It’s really painful and it’s from the inside out. Special effects used for the transformation are quite good and really gross. 

Figure 3: The painfull transformation.

In the end the whole village are searching for Rosaleen and the werewolf where they discover that she has turned into a wolf. Rosaleen awakes with a scream, wolves apparently breaking through the window of her bedroom. The end of the movie is quite confusing because we can’t imagine what is happening. There are different versions that we can imagine for the end. The director leave it for the audience to imagine what will happen. I enjoyed the film, it was really good, but a little bit confusing. “The movie recounts the ambiguous sequence of events and feelings concerning a girl’s first sexual encounter.”(Little Red Riding Hood Book page 166, 2003). During the whole movie we see Rosaleen changing from adolescent to a women. “The imagery is that of a child's fears of wolves and monsters, but they seem to be a representation of how Rosaleen is coping with her own internal changes.” (Eric Miller, 2009)

Illustration List:

Figure 1: The Company Of Wolves : Poster

http://www.impawards.com/1985/posters/company_of_wolves.jpg

(Accessed on 6/10/2011)

Figure 2: The Company Of Wolves: The Forest

http://wearemoviegeeks.com/wp-content/companywolves.jpg

(Accessed on 6/10/2011)

Figure 3: The Company Of Wolves: Transformation

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VEIIo3h6wXFsQYIxt2nAGWMtluVfOy992etVoaXprJLTFGYZCdYk-54IgVJaOj52R3xZ1daZQfLjysWhumlHGdfoeE7XFpfqRtX0NGPBtqdzb4WS6Z9BjVphXyGM6M0oElu1K_g2SMVw/s400/ishot-2708.jpg

(Accessed on 6/10/2011)

Bibliography:

Film Review by Eric Miller: http://classic-horror.com/reviews/company_of_wolves_1984 
(Accessed on 6/10/2011)

Film Review by Kristin Battestella:

http://ithinkthereforeireview.blogspot.com/2009/05/company-of-wolves.html

(Accessed on 6/10/2011)

Little Red Riding Hood Book: Uncloaked by Catherine Orenstein by Catherine Orenstein page 166.
(Accessed on 6/10/2011)