The Wild Hunt (Alexandre Franchi, 2009): Canada

Reviewed by Charles Hedrick. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

My favorite films from this years film festival are the “Quebec Films”, and “The Wild Hunt” is by no means an exception. This film is easily one of my favorite films that I have seen at this festival. I found that the characters were interesting, the Plot was compelling, and the cinematography was decent. The only true issue that this film may have had was that there were some references and jokes in the film that only a certain audience can understand.  Alexandre Franchi even stated at before the film started, “me and my buddies that used to play D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) made this film because of how much we remember loving the game.”

The film opens with a fierce sword fight, after this one of the swordsmen retreats to his king. After a few words are exchanged between the king and swordsman (whom is apparently a viking) a fight breaks out between the king and viking. After a few slashes the king says “hey I stabbed you, you should be #&%@ dead!”, then there is an argument between them about who killed who, which is ultimately resolved by a referee. It is these kind of moments that make “The Wild Hunt” such an enjoyable film. However after a series of events in the film, there is a drastic change in atmosphere as the genres suddenly change from almost comedic, to thriller, all the while revolving around the main characters hunt for his romantic interest. So the bottom line is that there is something for everyone  in “The Wild Hunt“.

I found that the characters in this film were fascinating to watch, even if some of them were unbelievably self-centered. That was the only problem with the acting in this film, some of the characters were just so unbelievably self-centered, such as the main characters romantic interest, Evelyn (played by Kaniehtiio Horn). What I mean by this is that Horn’s character was so unbelievably self-centered that it almost made me question the credibility of the character, and it made it much harder to take the character seriously, which is a rather huge problem, seeing how important Evelyn is for the plot. However while certain characters in this film are rather unbelievable at times, the acting was still good enough to pull it all off. The proof that there was good acting is this film is that the audience really started to care about the characters in the film, and what happens to them. For instance, whenever anything bad happens to the main protagonist, Erik (played by Ricky Mabe), the audience would let out a big sigh, or would say “awww”. 

Another good aspect of the film would be the cinematography (Cinematography done by Claudine Sauvé). The film did an excellent job showing just how extensive and large theses kind of gatherings are, and just how bizarre they can be. Another good aspect of the cinematography is how it showed just how isolated their game is, and how far they are removed from society. This sense of isolation really adds to the feeling of dread and peril when the film goes from comedy to thriller.

So all in all I believe that, even though there are some jokes and references that might be overlooked by the general audience, “The Wild Hunt” has somthing for everyone, and there is no real reason why someone should not like it. I highly recommend seeing it if you have not already.