Romance and Becoming Free: A Response to AC CP Charlotte Kuchinsky's "Reviewing the Film Blood and Chocolate."

Blood and Chocolate, an Eastern European romantic werewolf movie, originally appealed to me mostly because I thought they were playing an Evanescence song in the previews. (Evanescence is a beautiful combination of heavy metal and melodic vocals.) The song from the previews isn't even in the movie, but it still turned out to be a pretty good story of ill-fated love. I read one negative review of it on AC, and then another fairly positive one by Charlotte Kuchinsky, and decided to respond.

"When we are children, we believe the world is full of magic. We believe in myths and legends, and that destiny awaits. That is the world I remember, and the one I wish I'd never known." So says the gorgeous and forlorn damsel Vivian as the film opens and we see the losses she experienced in her childhood.

At a pastoral home in the American countryside, Vivian (Agnes Brucker) is making snow angels and playing with her siblings when a group of hunters comes and starts murdering her family. She alone escapes by running into the woods, apparently turning into a very pretty white wolf and running away with a couple of other wolves.

The film cuts to twenty years later in Romania (really Bulgaria), and Vivian is jogging in the streets of the city. Vivian is a non-violent, Ghandi-like loup garou, which is the French name for werewolf. She lives for "the running," "the being free," not the killing of innocent humans. She does not participate in any of the wolf hunting games, although she is actually faster and stronger than many of the others. She is a white wolf, a symbol of her innocence and purity.

By the way, the main cast is as follows:

Agnes Brucker is Vivian (the Juliet character if you will) - the female lead, a beautiful, white werewolf. She must hide her true identity from Aiden (the Romeo character), who falls for her on first sight, and whom she comes to love too. If he finds out that she is a loup garou (a Capulet), the pack of "Capulets" will kill him.

Olivier Martinez is Gabriel (father Capulet), the leader of the werewolf pack, a dark and mean werewolf. He has jet black hair, a thick, vaguely threatening European accent, and wears a lot of black leather. He played the bad guy in the movie "S.W.A.T." if anyone remembers, and he used the same accent and leather to be bad back then.

Bryan Dick is Rafe (Tybalt), a rebellious werewolf who embraces the dark side of his fearless, night-loving wolf nature. He is Gabriel's son - like father, like son, and Vivian's cousin (hence "Tybalt"). Rafe will one day become leader of the pack like his dad. Bryan Dick played a rebellious and insubordinate ship's mate in the movie "Master and Commander," where he got drunk and insulted a ship's officer, got lashes for it, and got killed off in battle.

Hugh Dancy is Aiden (Romeo Montague), Vivian's human love-interest; a graphic artist from America who is fleeing his abusive father, whom he beat up in self-defense. Aiden falls intensely in love with Vivian at first sight, oddly enough in a Romanian church late at night. He wants her to love him back and can't understand why she won't be more open with him.

Aiden plays a pretty likeable character dealing with the problem of being in love with a fearsome wolf-girl. He is attracted to the mythology of the supernatural as long as it is a distant legend, but when he encounters the supernatural face to face he has a visceral reaction against it.

If this story line borrows from Romeo and Juliet, then Rafe is the exact counterpart of Tybalt, the hot-tempered, angry young cousin of Juliet who gets himself killed by Romeo. Shakespeare's Tybalt hates Montagues. Rafe hates humans, blaming them for all the bad that ever happens to his pack of loups-garoux.

What's good about this movie is the way different characters are developed. I like "Underworld" too (another werewolf and vampire, movie), but that movie doesn't have the level of character development of "Blood and Chocolate."

Take for example the character development of Astrid, Vivian's Aunt. She is the character who gets to use the words "blood and chocolate" first in a line. She is quoting a poem, I think, and says "I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth - one as hateful as the other." Blood and chocolate is the bittersweet joy of being a werewolf. As a werewolf you relish in the running and the "being free," but your soul is darkened by the killing. Astrid relished in being the leader's wife (or more like a concubine), but now she lives in the eternal bitterness of being an ex-wife who can no longer relive her young glory days.

Astrid used to be Gabriel's wife, but now she is old news, as a werewolf pack leader takes a new wife every seven years. She has been tossed aside by her first love, and now she watches Vivian faced with the possible loss of hers.

Astrid is somewhere in between Vivian (good, motivated by love) and Gabriel (evil, motivated by power). She relishes in the animal pleasure of being Gabriel's mistress, but despairs in the cruel fact that their attraction was never based on love. She loves Gabriel and her love is unrequited.

There is character growth in Aiden too. At first he thinks the loups-garoux are only a legend, and as such he takes an intense interest in them. They are a mere curiosity to him. He is fascinated by the idea of changing into an animal at will, at having the power of "mind over matter" and being able to transform oneself.

But when he encounters the reality of the supernatural as Rafe transforms into a werewolf and tries to kill him, Aiden is sickened by it. He can hardly look at Vivian, knowing she is a loup-garou as well.

Aiden finally sheds his fear of Vivian, and in doing so he becomes able to love her. In one dramatic scene he cuts his arm open in front of her to tempt her werewolf instincts and then, seeing he was foolish, embraces and kisses her.

Vivian has to make some choices of her own. She must decide between the pack and family versus her human lover, and in so doing, she takes ownership of her own life and destiny, rather than passively playing into the hands of authorities and traditions.

I give this film three stars out of five, mostly for character development and depth based in the similarity to Romeo and Juliet. Giving it a positive rating goes against most of what has been said or written about this film. The Internet Movie Database gives it a meager 5.1 out of 10. The scenery and filmography are beautiful. The plot could have been more developped and the loups-garoux legends more enhanced. Many will see it as a silly story of teenage forbidden love. But I think we should remember that Romeo and Juliet were also only teenagers when they fell in love, Juliet probably no more than 13 or 14 years old, as was marriagable age in Shakespeare's time.