The Company of Wolves

In a present-day country house, Rosaleen, a young girl, dreams that she lives in a fairytale-like late 18th-century forest with her parents and sister Alice. There, wolves chase down Alice and kill her one night. While her parents are mourning, Rosaleen goes to stay with her grandmother, who knits a red shawl for her granddaughter to wear. The superstitious old woman gives Rosaleen an ominous warning, "Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple, and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet." Rosaleen returns to her village, but finds that she must deal with the advances of an amorous boy. Rosaleen and the boy walk through the forest, where he discovers that a wolf attacked the village's cattle. The villagers set out to hunt the wolf; but once caught and killed, the wolf's corpse transforms into that of a human being. Rosaleen later takes a basket of goods through the woods to her grandmother's cottage, but en route she encounters a huntsman whose eyebrows meet. He challenges her, saying that he can find his way to the cottage before she can, and the pair set off. The hunter reaches the cottage first, reveals his bestial nature and kills Rosaleen's grandmother. Rosaleen arrives later and discovers the carnage, but her need to protect herself is complicated by her desire for the hunter. In the ensuing exchange, Rosaleen accidentally injures the huntsman with his own rifle. The hunter contorts in pain and turns back into a wolf. Rosaleen apologizes and takes pity on the wounded beast, musing that his pack could leave him behind in his state. She sits down and begins petting the wolf, comforting him while telling him a story. The villagers later arrive at the cottage, looking for a werewolf within. Instead, they discover that Rosaleen herself has become a wolf. Together, she and the huntsman, escape to the forest, joined by a growing pack. The wolves seem to stream into the real world, breaking into Rosaleen's house and gathering outside her bedroom. Rosaleen awakes with a scream as one leaps in through the window and sends her toys crashing to the floor. Embedded stories Stories are woven through the film, tales told within the main narrative that overlap with the central plot. • Granny's tale to Rosaleen: A young groom whose eyebrows meet is about to bed his new bride when a "call of nature" summons him outside. He disappears and his bride is terrified to see wolves howling outside. A search the following day yields a wolf pawprint only, and no sign of the groom; the bride furiously curses the wolves for taking away the man she loved. Years later, having since remarried and started a family, she is shocked to find her first husband at the door. Enraged at her having children with a new husband, the groom transforms into a werewolf, but is killed when the new husband returns. • Granny's second tale to Rosaleen: A young man whose eyebrows meet, the bastard son of a priest, is walking through the enchanted forest when he encounters the Devil, anachronistically arriving in a Rolls-Royce chauffeured by a blonde-haired woman. The Devil offers the boy a transformative potion, which he rubs onto his chest, causing hair to sprout rapidly. The boy is pleased, but then vines grow from the ground, twining around his legs and trapping him. He wails in protest and fear, his face distorting with his cries. His anguished visage appears in Rosaleen's bedroom mirror at the end of that dream sequence. • Rosaleen's story to her mother: A woman who lived in a valley "done a terrible wrong" by a rich, young nobleman turns up visibly pregnant at his wedding party "to put wrong to right". She calls out the nobleman and the rest of the nobles for their bigoted actions, and further denounces them by declaring "The wolves in the forest are more decent". She then reveals that she is an enchantress and magically transforms the groom, the bride, and all the other nobles (except for the musicians and servants) into wolves. They flee into the forest as the enchantress laughs; but afterward, the enchantress commands that the wolves "serenade" her and her child each night. • Rosaleen's story to the huntsman/wolf: A she-wolf from the world beneath arrives at a village. Despite meaning no harm, she is shot at and injured by a villager. She reveals herself in her human form to an old priest who takes her in and bandages her wound, seeing her innocence. Although touched by the priest's compassion and actions, she feels that she is not fit to stay. She eventually returns to her world through the village well. ==Cast==