Movie: Blood and Chocolate

I went to see this random movie last night called 'Blood and Chocolate'. I'd never heard of it before and saw it in the list of movies playing at the closest theater. It sounded just eccentric enough to be enjoyable. The movie is about a woman (who is a member of a pack of werewolves) who fights her feelings for a man who comes into her life so that she won't have to reconcile with her duties to the pack.

It turned out to be surprisingly well done. There were a number of good B-list actors and the music was pretty good. One thing that I really enjoyed was that the script really didn't care to explain the details of the lycanthropic condition (as portrayed by this particular writer's imagination) to the audience. Some things I understood, and some things I didn't. One thing that I found surprisingly neat was the pack's tendency to show their necks to their leader during a ceremony. It was used as a kind of group salute. I really don't think that I would have understood the significance of this had it not been for some of the fiction that I've read over the years. In a fight, a wolf (or whatever canine) will generally go for the throat. The act of willingly baring one's throat to the alpha is a sign of submission and respect. It's not so much the horror/blood/supernatural thing that interests me about this so much as the sociological application of a wolf pack hierarchy on a group of people. In similar fiction that I've read, it's very interesting to see the institution of the alpha male, the unilateral authority that he has, the rituals of the pack, and what the habits that the pack adopts in the protection of their alpha. The application of such canine institutions in man can make for much more interesting reading than the truth that is politics and religion.

Anyone who's interested in this particular line of fiction would probably be interested in reading a series of books by Kelly Armstrong. 'The OtherWorld' series is one that explores the lives of various supernatural characters. Typically, a book about one such character will introduce another who will, in turn, be the subject of the next book. I was turned on to this series about 7 years ago when someone loaned me a copy of the book 'Bitten', which is the first book in the series. Through Armstrong's imagination, I have been privy to unparalleled imagery of the afterlife, deities, the supernatural hierarchies and their feuds, and the adaptation of the various lifestyles into man's culture. VERY well constructed, to say the least.

Yes...it's been a while since I've written a Jason-is-really-super-weird post, so I figured that I'd make up for it today. ;)