The Company of Wolves

How could I have forgotten about this movie? I remember first seeing it in the late 80’s and seeing it again in high school. I thought this movie was so well done, and full of deep and meaningful symbolism. Fortunately, I still feel this way. It was this movie that brought fame to Neil Jordan and attention to author Angela Carter who wrote the original short story.

A young modern girl falls asleep in her English manor and begins to dream and here is where the story unfolds. Her dream involves her sister being chased through the forest by a pack of wolves and soon meets her demise. A funeral is held and we meet Rosaleen, who is really the young girl dreaming. Rosaleen has just become a teenager and is not only curious, but also becoming noticed by some of the young men in the village. It Is her Grandmother who begins to tell her tales designed to warn her and be cautious of men and their desires.

Her Grandmother weaves stories where the beast that lays inside of every man is forced out in the form of a wolf. Rosaleen is warned of these werewolves and is given three rules she must always follow when in the forest in order to identify what man is indeed a wolf in disguise. When wolf attacks around the village become a cause for concern, the stories of werewolves become less fiction and more of a reality for the villagers, and for Rosaleen who takes the place of the story teller, creating her own wolf tales.

When she one day stumbles across a nobleman in the woods on her way to visit her grandmother. We all grew up with the late of Little Red Ridding Hood and Rosaleen is the embodiment of the cautionary tale.

Neil Jordan tells the story is such a surreal way that it wasn’t any wonder he was asked to direct Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire. A long time favorite of mine, I would highly recommend this movie to any grown up lover of a good fairy tale.