I finished watching the Brit series MONDAY MONDAY, took a dinner break and watched THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, with the wonderful Angela Lansbury, right off the SWEENEY TODD tour, as the storytelling grandmother, who's fixated on tales of men, wolves, and girls who stray from the path, before she's eaten by a wolf waiting for Rosaleen in her red cloak to show up. I hadn't seen this film for years so I'd forgotten most of it, but it's quite an amazing dream-like trip through a pubescent girl's subconscious and a rather frightening horror film. The young girl playing Rosaleen delivers a stunning performance, running from innocent school girl to erotic tease, and the cast is quite wonderful, even if there may be too many different European accents going on in this neck of the village.
Visually, the filmreminded me a lot of SLEEPY HOLLOW and the Rackham fairy tale illustrations. There are no bright days in this village terrorized by wolves and werewolves; it's all dark and the woods are dangerous. And very creepy.
The surrounding story is set in the present at a wealthy country home, but Rosaleen's dream is set squarely in the 18th Century; the use of color, from the deep blacks to the scarlet cloak, is beautiful. There's one shot from a distance of Rosaleen at the top of a tree she has climbed, where bird's eggs hatch blue human babies, and there's a distant shot of a lot of black trees against a gray sky and this speck of scarlet in the middle of the screen at the top of the tree.
Along with all of the wolves, four-legged and two-legged, there are lots of slimy frogs, huge spiders, phallic symbols employing animal, insect, and serpent: Rosaleen's trip to Granny's house is a walk from adolescence to functioning sexuality and girls who get involved with wolves just might get hurt or learn a few things Granny prefers they not know.
