The Company of Wolves
Jun. 29th, 2011 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreI just watched this movie (I believe it's based on and Angela Carter story?) which uses the basic Red Riding Hood story as a framework to tell all sorts of werewolf myths. It was very interesting and 80s fantasy turned weird and creepy and surreal (and 80s fantasy is weird and surreal and sometimes creepy to start with) and actually possibly the most weirdly surreal thing I've seen (well, no, Utena is kinda hard to beat...), and I've seen my share of weirdly surreal things (though nowhere near as much as some of you.)
Seriously, though, if you're interested in myths and stories that combine myths, check it out.
Though, some comments people made about Red Riding Hood make more sense now.
Primarily the comments on having hoped Valerie would become a werewolf/surprise that she didn't, as Rosaleen does. Because, there were a lot of similarities?
Some is just werewolf myth, such as the wolf's body/bodyparts returning to human after the wolf is dead. But there's the almost obsessive emphasis on the vibrant red cloak standing out (though, what filmmaker could resist?) and both stories starting with the death of the lead's sister, not to mention both movies taking the "the love interest is the hunter who is a werewolf" route recent versions like (though the trope is VERY different in the two movies). Also, the grandmother in Red Riding Hood was married to a werewolf, and I'm pretty sure that the story the grandmother in The Company of Wolves about he young woman whose first husband was a werewolf who disappeared on their wedding night then came back years later actually was the grandmother's story. There's also a bit of a fixation on the town well in both.
Mind you, RRH doesn't feel like a copy at all and all the similar elements play out very differently int o the two, it's just worth noting.
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Date: 2011-06-30 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-30 05:15 am (UTC)I wasn't expecting any similarities between the two aside from being loosely based on the same story.
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Date: 2011-06-30 05:43 am (UTC)It really hit me comparing the two how much genre and narrative form make in how a story affects you. Or even things like lighting. I mean, I always kind of knew it unconsciously, but I didn't think about it. I was thinking about how older horror movies are much more effective for me, not only because they employ a concentrated kind of Body Horror (DX DX DX) but because their every moment, shot and lighting is not perfectly calibrated to a particular tone. It feels more real when the sun is shining brightly during a sad or creepy scene and other things work to unnerve you.
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Date: 2011-06-30 10:11 am (UTC)