A Company of Wolves

Neil jordan, UK, 1984, 95 minutes

Jordan the novelist turned film-maker pays tribute to fellow writer Angela Carter in this richly wrought production of her novel. Taking the traditional 'once upon a time..,.' style fairy-tale as its basis, The Company of Wolves takes great delight in warping and exaggerrating the usual characters found therein - the big bad wolf becomes a charming but predatory noble lost in the woods - and charges them and their actions with an almost tangible sexual undercurrent.

This is ceratinly no Disney fairy tale: the strange fantasy world imagined and explored by the pre-pubescent Red Riding Hood figure is just as likely to terrfiy as seduce.

Lovingly detailled sets and splendid special effects (the werewolf metamorphosis scene is a stunner) are integral parts in the lovingly detailed materialisation of a world which oozes a kind of exotic fairy tale authenticity. You know - the forest is always misty, the trees are proudly sinister, and the rural cottages all sit cosy and gingerbread style.

Some may find the sexual symbolism a little too obvious, but the story is told with such enthusiasm and general delight in the brash sexuality of the whole thing that one can easily forgive this fault.

Atmospheric, sensual, and at times frightening, The Company of Wolves is really not your average kind of British movie.

Review by Iain Harral
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96