Interpreting the Symbolism
This is one of my favorite movies, mainly because it's so rich in symbolism. A big reason I think it's so divisive is because if one doesn't take the time to interpret and look for the symbolism, it can be very confusing, especially to audience members who are looking for just a straightforward werewolf story.
But for those of us who like to analyze, I think it can be a very fun film to watch. And of course the fun about interpreting the symbolism in a film like 'Company of Wolves' is that different people will come away with different interpretations, and all of them can be valid in their own way since the story is the ever shifting dream of an adolescent girl.
But I thought I'd offer my own interpretation, and see if anyone agrees.
Be warned this is going to be LONG.
First and foremost the film is obviously a coming of age story of sorts for Rosaleen. When the film opens her sister Alice says she's laying down because of a 'tummy ache' (menstrual pains perhaps?) and she later berates her for having tried on her 'lipstick'. Rosaleen is obviously on the brink of growing up but from all her childhood toys surrounding her it's also obvious she's not quite there yet.
Her Sister and the Wolves: She's just beginning a journey that her sister has already undergone. Hence her sister being 'taken by the wolves' in Rosaleen's dream. Since Wolves seem to symbolize adult men in the story, Alice (Rosaleen's sister) has already strayed from the path and entered 'their world'. Hence her being 'dead' in the dream village, she has 'died' to childhood and become an adult in the forest.
The Forest:The forest is shown as both beautiful, but also dangerous. It is the world where the wolves live and where Rosaleen is told never to go unless she stays on the path. The 'path' being symbolic for childhood innocence, so long as she doesn't explore this world she can't be 'corrupted' by it.
Straying means losing ones innocence and entering the world of adults permanently... as once a person grows up they can't go back to being a child again, likewise once one is enticed to leave the path in Rosaleens dream, they can never return the same as before. So symbolically one can interpret the forest as the adult world in Rosaleen's dream, it is both exotic but also scary to a young girl at the same time. Nonetheless Rosaleen can't help but be drawn to it despite her Grandmothers words of warning, showing her growing maturity.
The Village: The 'village' is her safe haven of childhood, it is where she plays with her friends, and it is where her parents live. But as we see in the dream that Rosaleen is becoming somewhat unsatisfied with her life in the 'village' she's beginning to desire something 'more'. Hence her complaining about how all the village boys are 'clowns'. She's beginning to 'outgrow' her life in the village, and beginning to desire something which can't be satisfied by staying there.
Hence her constant running away from the ‘boy’ who has a crush on her. At first she was content to be his playmate, but as he starts wanting to move into more romantic territory with her, Rosaleen resists because he’s too much a child to satisfy her. It’s obvious she is maturing much much faster.
Granny: Her Granny, is probably the biggest symbolic tie to Rosaleen’s childhood. We even see that in the ‘real world’ she is actually one of Rosaleen’s dolls, and more-so then anyone else in the dream she is the one who wants to keep Rosaleen a child safely in the world of the village (childhood).
ALL of her stories are to make Rosaleen hate and fear wolves (adult men) and therefore to hate what comes with them (adult desires, sexuality, etc).
The Story of the Traveling Man: Notice the woman in the story is the victim of both the men. The woman is depicted as the perfect submissive housewife taking care of a whole load of kids by herself, and putting up with the abuse of the men in her life. The men are depicted as nothing short of beasts, her first husband (the wolf) abandons her and later attacks her in rage when he discovers she remarries, and her second husband hits her. Granny concludes the story by saying that all men are nice and charming until they ‘have their way’ with you and then the ‘beast comes out’.
And Rosaleen says “I’d never let a man strike me” which shows that Rosaleen doesn’t necessarily agree with what her Granny has told her, as she believes a woman doesn’t HAVE to be a victim. This is another indication of her slowly dawning awareness that her Granny doesn’t ‘know everything’.
The Boy Who Met the Devil in the Wood:Granny’s second story is another tale of how once a boy grows up into a man he becomes a ‘wolf’. The ‘devil’ gives him all those forbidden sexual feelings that come with adolescence and the forest therefore ‘takes him’. Again saying that growing up is something bad and should be avoided at all costs.
And once again Rosaleen disagrees with Granny “That’s a horrid story, I didn’t like it at all”.
The Nest of Eggs: This idea of growing up being bad and scary is again contrasted when Rosaleen runs away from the village boy and climbs a tree in the woods. She notices a nest full of Stork eggs and puts on some lipstick admiring herself in the mirror as a woman and not a girl, and that is precisely when the eggs crack to reveal human baby figurines. Maybe symbolic for Rosaleen getting her first menstrual cycle? She has literally come face to face with the reality that she can now have children of her own. And unlike the story her Granny told her about the boy and the devil, by contrast this is a very positive experience for Rosaleen, and it’s something she shares secretly with her mother.
And again it happens in the forest.
It’s also interesting THAT is when the ‘wolf’ notices her.
She’s become sexually mature and now the men are starting to notice her for the first time.
The Witch and the Wolves: The next story from Granny (Rosaleen tells it to her mother) is the story about the woman who gets revenge on the man who got her pregnant and abandoned her. (AGAIN another story about a woman being the ‘victim’ of a man’s lust) although in this story the woman gets revenge by turning the man and his wedding guests into wolves. Again symbolizing them as beasts.
All the stories about men being beasts with women being their victims obviously bothers Rosaleen and she questions her mother about her father. And her mother gives her probably the most important advice in the film: “if there is a beast in men, it meets its match in women too”, that a woman is just as capable of being sexually dominant as men, and that she can actually be his ‘match’ his ‘equal’ and not his victim.
This Rosaleen discovers for herself when she meets the Huntsman/Wolf and he entices her to leave the path…or rather her own attraction to him gets her to leave the path. Rosaleen found what she was missing in the ‘village’, what all those clownish ‘village boys’ couldn’t do for her. But Granny’s words still keep her wary of the Huntsman, she doesn’t trust him at first.
The Wolf/Huntsman: The Huntsman/Wolf is obvious the counterpoint to Granny, he symbolizes adulthood as Granny symbolizes childhood. Granny tells him to go back to hell from whence he came but he states that he doesn’t come from hell, he comes from the forest, in other words he and the adult feelings he brings with him are natural, not evil as Granny believes. He defeats Granny and her head shatters like the porcelain doll that she is in reality, and all her warnings about men and adulthood are as empty as her head was. Adulthood always wins.
The Red Hood: When Rosaleen confronts the Wolf in Granny’s house, he tells her to remove her red hood and throw it into he fire, this was Granny’s gift of innocence to Rosaleen, it covered her body from men, and the Wolf tells her to instead embrace it, not hide it. Rosaleen still doesn’t trust him but after she shoots him and sees him cry she responds “I’m sorry I never knew a wolf could cry”...another words she didn’t know that men had feelings like women do. All of Granny’s brainwashing had painted them as nothing but beasts.
The Wolf Girl: Rosaleen realizes Granny was wrong, and that she was wrong and she comforts the wolf and tells the story of the wolf girl. But unlike the others which came from Granny, this story comes from her. It’s about a girl who strayed from the path and grew up (turned into a wolf), she tries to return to her childhood innocence (the world of the village) but she isn’t welcome there, once grown one can’t ever return to childhood. So the wolf girl accepts this fact and returns to the world of adults.
This is Rosaleen accepting the fact that she must grow up.
She embraces the wolf and becomes one herself. And once ‘grown’ her father can no longer recognize her, neither can any of the villagers, but her mother recognizes her and saves her from being shot as she runs into the woods with her new mate. Notice she is running WITH him, she is NOT his victim as Granny warned her she would become, she is his equal. As her mother said, the wolf in him met a similar wolf in her, Rosaleen made the decision to go with him herself, it wasn’t forced on her.
And by embracing the wolf in her dream it is therefore her subconscious recognizing it’s time for her to grow up in reality. Hence the wolf (really her dog) breaking through the window and knocking her toys to the floor. It’s Rosaleen coming face to face with what she will become and it’s albeit frightening for her in reality… but nature will take it’s course in the end.
The film is such a treasure trove of so many goodies the more one watches it, and all the animals that Rosaleen encounters mean something:
The spider nest: Rosaleen becoming fascinated by the idea of having children, which is later enforced by her discovery of the eggs in the tree.
The Snake: Temptation, as the snake tempted Eve, so to would the wolf tempt Rosaleen
The Frog: Transformation, as the wolves transform into men so to will Rosaleen transform into a woman.
Granny Stole: I see it as Granny has taken something from the Forest and subjugated it to her will. As Granny sees the forest and all it’s creatures as ‘evil’ she turned that animal from the Forest into one of her servants (hence it's 'dead') and that explains its hissing at the wolf and the creatures of the woods of which it once belonged.
The Mirror: This isn’t an animal but I find it interesting just the same because Rosaleen is carrying it around and looking at herself. I think it’s meant to symbolize the change going on with Rosaleen as she matures into a woman. Hence her leaving it behind after her encounter with the Wolf, she’s reached the end of her transformation and no longer needs it.
Of course everyone interprets things differently, and I would never call myself an expert but these are just my own interpretation of the film. It’s not a werewolf movie for me at all…it’s a totally unique take on a coming of age story, and one that I can watch over and over again and still find more things to marvel at and contemplate.