Brotherhood of the Wolf - The Director's Cut
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TVA Films / 2001 / 150 Minutes / Not Rated
Street Date: October 1, 2002 
Apparently inspired by the success of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, French filmmaker Christophe Gans decided that if the Americans can do something well he could do it even better. Adapting loosely from the local legend of "the Beast of Gevaudan", what Gans came up with was Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf), a giddy concoction mixing elements of fairy tale, monster movie, period piece, drama, romance, conspiracy thriller, and rocking kung-fu action picture. The movie has a beastie of supernatural origins, buxom wenches in tight corsets, pompous aristocrats, beautiful French whores, papal spies, and an American Indian sidekick who can commune with the animal spirits (or some such ridiculous nonsense), and more importantly, kick everybody's ass. Holy crap, if this isn't one of the best movies ever made, then I'll be damned if it at least isn't one of the most entertaining! It's the middle of the 19th Century and the French countryside is being terrorized by what is officially described as a really really big wolf. No ordinary canine, this nasty monster stalks only women and children and has been smart enough to evade capture from widespread hunting parties. It doesn't just tear up or eat its victims; it lures them into booby traps then picks them up and smashes them repeatedly against rocks until there is nothing left but a bloody pulp of a human shell. This sucker isn't just hungry; it's downright mean. Enter the royal naturalist Sir Gregoire de Fronsac and his ass-kicking Native American bodyguard/best friend, who are sent by the King to investigate the source of the trouble and wind up uncovering a convoluted conspiracy of Oliver Stone-ian proportions. Gans takes an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink approach to the material, throwing in many disparate elements in the attempt to provide a little something for everyone. Some viewers have rejected the style and have complained about the movie's long running time, but personally I loved every minute of it. Some of the CGI special effects could use improvement; otherwise the film has stunning production values and is ceaselessly inventive. This is a violent, sexy, funny, and ravishingly beautiful movie with extremely high repeat viewing potential. Brotherhood of the Wolf is great silly fun of the highest order. Released already on DVD in the United States by Universal Studios Home Video, that disc has now been trumped by a new 3-disc special edition from TVA Films in Canada (TVA has also released a single-disc edition that is equivalent to the first disc in their box set). The Canadian disc is encoded for Region 1 NTSC playback and will function in any American DVD player. The movie itself is a Director's Cut that runs 7 minutes longer than the American release. The extra footage extends some elements of the love triangle in the plot; it is not entirely necessary to the flow of the movie, but it does provide a better transition between two segments of the narrative (Fronsac's departure and return) and any extra footage of the exquisite Monica Bellucci or the lovely Emilie Duquenne is a welcome addition.
Video: How Does The Disc Look? Although the source elements used for this Canadian DVD contain a longer version of the movie, the quality of the transfer looks very similar to that on the American disc from Universal. The picture has been letterboxed to the 2.35:1 aspect ratio with anamorphic enhancement. Colors are rich and vibrant with precise delineation of various shades. Contrast range is excellent and there is a strong sense of texture in the fine details of the image. This is not to say that the two discs are equal in all respects. In fact, they are quite different in several important areas. The American disc would seem to have much better digital compression quality. I say "seem to have" because it appears to achieve this look through the use of high-pass filtering that softens the image and reduces the visibility of compression artifacts. The Canadian disc has not been filtered and features a sharper picture, sometimes dramatically so. The downside to this is that edge enhancement (which was present but subdued on the Universal disc) is more pronounced and compression artifacts are much more frequent. The picture is rather edgy, dark scenes tend to be grainier, and shots that include a complex amount of cluttered picture information (such as the overhead shot at 1:12:42) are marred by mosquito noise. The problem is no doubt exacerbated by the fact that the Canadian disc has a longer running time and has been crammed with space-hogging animated menus and soundtrack options, including two audio commentaries and a DTS track (more on these below). In all, I still think this is a good picture but it is notably inferior to the Universal disc, which although softer has a smoother and more film-like image. I do not think the TVA disc is terrible by any means, but the larger your screen size the more likely you will find these flaws distracting. Viewers watching the disc on a traditional 4:3 (non-widescreen) television should please take note: The disc has been encoded with the Pan-and-Scan-on-the-Fly feature, perhaps mistakenly. Your DVD player must be set for "4:3 LETTERBOX" mode, not "4:3 STANDARD". The picture will be cropped to approximately 1.78:1 with magnified grain if watching in the wrong mode.
Audio: How Does The Disc Sound? This has got to be the loudest DVD I have ever owned. Even the menus are nearly deafening (Note to DVD producers: Please stop doing that.). After adjusting the volume, the French Dolby Digital 5.1 track is the equal of that found on the Universal disc, which is to say that it is truly outstanding. This is an amazingly aggressive soundtrack with deep and luscious sound. There is nearly constant full-range activity coming from every channel. As fists and swords whip through the air, the sounds swish discretely between all speakers. Bass is thunderous and sharp; during the fight scenes you can almost feel yourself being kicked in the gut. If I have one tiny complaint, it is that the ADR work does stand out at times. There is a noticeable lack of lip sync during some dialogue passages, even with the original French soundtrack. I noticed the same problem when I saw the movie theatrically, so this is certainly not a flaw with the disc mastering. Also copied from the Universal release is the laughable English dub in Dolby Digital 5.1. Even though the sound quality is identical to the other 5.1 mix in all ways other than the dialogue, the voices are utterly ridiculous and the English rescripting is very poor. The inclusion of this track is a useless feature that would have been best left off to conserve disc space. Even better than either of these Dolby Digital options is the DTS track (only available in the original French, thank you very much). Although the two sound options are more similar than not, I found the DTS to be slightly more refined. Surround usage is more defined with smoother directional imaging, and bass is just a bit cleaner and tighter. Is this small improvement worthy of the considerable amount of disc space that it takes up? That is debatable, especially considering the compression flaws visible in the picture. Regardless, this is reference quality audio, every bit as impressive as the largest-budgeted of Hollywood movies. English or French subtitles are available, but no closed captioning. The English subtitles are different than and much superior to those on the Universal disc, which are actually "dubtitles" (a transcription of the English dubbing script). The essence of the information conveyed is the same, but the wording of the translation reads much better on the TVA disc. For example, during an early scene the voice-over narration is translated as "As for the man who followed him like a shadow he was a foreigner and you knew nothing about him" on the Universal disc, but is much more simply and eloquently stated as "The man who shadowed him was a mysterious foreigner" on the TVA.
Supplements: What Goodies Are There? Unlike the relatively barren Universal release, this 3-disc special edition from TVA Films is loaded with bonus features and is practically a direct port of the lavish collector's set released in France last year. Disc 1 has two audio commentaries, one from director Christophe Gans and the other from stars Samuel Le Bihan and Vincent Cassell. Unfortunately, both commentaries are conducted in French and the disc offers no English subtitles for them. The remaining supplements are found on the next two discs, and those viewers who don't speak French will be relieved to discover that everything else has indeed been subtitled in English when necessary. The biggest inclusion on Disc 2 is the 78-minute The Guts of the Beast documentary. This is a very thorough making-of piece that covers all aspects of filmmaking from the acting and production design to the fight choreography and special effects. Some of the talk about the movie's ambitions may sound a little pretentious, but this is a highly informative and worthwhile feature. Following this is the deleted scenes featurette, which runs 43 minutes and is identical to the one found on the Universal DVD. Five scenes are included with video interviews and explanations from Gans. Next is The Legend, a 17-minute interview with naturalist Michel Louis, who talks about the real legend of the Gevaudan Beast that inspired the movie. Louis has his own theories about where the Beast really came from. He talks fast but provides a lot of interesting information and is rather entertaining. (A warning: This video supplement froze up on my Malata DVD player, however it played through without incident on my Denon player). Lastly on this disc is the theatrical trailer in non-anamorphic letterbox (cropped to 1.85:1) with an English narrator. In case those supplements weren't thorough enough, Disc 3 has a further 77-minute documentary Brotherhood of the Wolf: Behind the Scenes. As expected from its title, this one provides onset production footage and describes a number of problems the crew had on the shoot. Better than your average electronic press kit filler, there is some genuinely interesting material here. After that, a section of storyboards contain artwork for 12 scenes. Each scene is presented as an animated montage, preventing you from stepping through the drawings manually. Wrapping up the on-disc content we have a still gallery with a healthy selection of production art, advertising materials, and onset photos. The disc case has better artwork than the Universal release and includes a 14-page booklet with four essays about the production of the film. One essay claims that the movie was "one of the first conventional films to be shot directly in digital form before being transferred onto 35mm film." I believe this must be a translation error because other sources have confirmed that the movie was actually shot in the Super35 film format and then scanned into a computer file for digital manipulation, much as had been done previously on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Amelie. Each disc in the set has alternate French or English animated menus. They are handsomely designed but are obnoxiously, even frighteningly loud and the long transition time between screens becomes frustrating very quickly. DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC? If inserted into your DVD-ROM drive, Disc 2 contains the movie's French and English press kits in .pdf format as well as an Internet link to the movie's French-language website (which has way too many pop-up windows for its own good). Disc 3 provides a copy of the script with writer's notes. Sadly, these all appear only in French with no options for an English-speaking audience. (Editor's Note: This Canadian release is not encoded with the InterActual 2.0 Player, but TVA's own proprietary software. It may not be compatible with some operating systems.) Parting Thoughts If not for the video compression issues, this wonderful 3-disc collector's edition beats the American release in just about every other respect. Better case art, better subtitles, a Director's Cut of the movie, DTS sound, and a substantial number of excellent supplements makes this a must-own for any fan of the movie. Unfortunately, I cannot help but think that the picture quality might have been improved had some of the disc's extraneous contents been streamlined, especially the useless dub track and the annoying menus. As it is, though, I still highly recommend it for purchase despite these flaws. Hardcore fans may want to own both versions, but the Canadian disc is the preferred method of watching the movie. In my opinion the longer running time, DTS sound, and improved subtitles outweigh the picture quality differences between the two releases. |
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