Visual Howls

DIRECTOR NEIL JORDAN sees the world through weird-colored lenses. His new film. The Company of Wolves, reels off variations on the Red Riding Hood theme developed with imaginative cittematic flourishes but little psychological subtlety. The result is something of a cross between the Lord of the Rings and Garcia-Marquez, but without the characterizing felicity of Realismo Magico.

Eggs hatching babies, giant toadstools, but her-world creatures climbing up through the village well, and, of course, those amazing lycanthropes themselves; they're all here. And it is all shown to advantage against sets that glow with the medieval luster of a Waterhouse painting.

All this glitter enchants us with its boundless imagination. But it does not amount to more than the sum of its promising parts. The film suffers from a lack of cohesion, an enchanting madness in search of a method.

The Red Riding Hood motif dreams of Rosaleen provide the ostensible framework for all the werewolf permutations. We only rub against reality during the very wispy frame scenes that depict nothing much: Rosaleen breathes heavily in her sleep. Rosaleen's unconscious takes over, Rosaleen meets handsome men, Rosaleen meets hand-some wolf.

Only the first frame scene tells us a bit about Rosaleen's family background. At the beginning of the movie, as Rosaleen sleeps, her sister calls her a "pest." Rosaleen twitches a bit so when her sister gets mauled by a pack of ravenous wolves early on, the vindictiveness of Rosaleen's character suddenly surfaces.

BUT THIS IS ALL we ever find out about the real Rosaleen. Interestingly enough the movie strives to philosophize on the nature of reality. At one point Rosaleen, who learns not only stories about lycanthropy, but the appropriate methods of recounting them, reveals this facet of the movie as the she begins yet another wolf tale, "Maybe...Maybe once upon a time..."

Rosaleen quite obviously concocts her own reality. But is this the real Rosaleen? Isn't the real Rosaleen still asleep? And how can we be sure that one is the real Rosaleen anyway? Jordan himself seems none too sure.

Another pet phrase, voiced by the rather dazed huntsmen and villagers of the dream scenes is, "They say seeing is believing..." This is usually muttered after the hacked-off forepaw or noggin of a wolf develops hominoid traits in instant coffee fashion.

We get the idea Jordan is encouraging us to believe and like what we're seeing without any justification beyond his convincing special effects. They are. At one point, a werewolf who ran off because he heard the "call of nature," returns to find her burdened with a new family. Peevea, he peels his skin off, and, of course, reveals and reveis in his homolupens status.

Jordan obviously wants to explore the psycho-sexual import in the myth of lycanthropy. To a certain extent he succeeds. Thus Red Riding Hood, who is played a little too somberly by a lovely Sarah Patterson, and her grandmother, a scary yet whimsical Angela Lansbury, do seem to engender much of the brooding atmosphere with their love of telling haunting stories, "If he's born feet first and his eyebrows meet in the middle...One day he'll meet in the devil in the wood."

Jordan simply embellishes these tales. The boy described does meet the devil. Immediately the shrubbery at his feet begins to lengthen to encircle and entrap him. We may not know much about the personalities of the characters by the end of the movie, but we certainly know why the devil scares them. The woods are both lovely, and dark and deep. Finally Rosaleen meets a lupine lover who may be the devil himself. He woos her in two scenes as superficially demure yet sexually suggestive as the near-naughty tale itself: "What big teeth you have...the better to eat you with!..."

In The Company of Wolves Jordan has wrought a veritable wonderland. The film is so visually sumptuous that, despite its shallow characterization and sometimes blatant psychologizing, it cannot fail to please the ethically inclined. It is a flawed cinematic gem but for all its cracks it gives a lovely light.