The background of the story of "Wolf Walker" is set in Ireland in the Middle Ages. According to the words of the Irish in the film, it can be determined that there were not many British people entering Ireland at that time, but only the Duke Protector ruled. Judging from this, the time period is roughly between 1169 (British invasion of Ireland) to 1541 (British colonization of Ireland).
The story revolves around an eleven-year-old girl and a local legendary wolf runner who travels to Ireland for the father of a hunter under Duke Protector after the death of her mother.
The main line of the story starts from cutting down forests and killing wolves. Because the wolves and wolf walkers in the forest often disturbed the shepherds grazing around the forest, and the British colonists also needed land, so a conflict between man and beast, man and nature began. Next, I will analyze several main characters, and then summarize the connotation of the film.
One is the heroine's father, Goodfellow, a hunter whose wife died in his early years, so he brought his daughter to Ireland to live with each other. Because of the existence of this plot, the daughter is an important spiritual sustenance for him, and he is reluctant to put her daughter in an overly dangerous situation. The reaction of Goodfellow after the comprehensive movie can be easily seen. When he heard that his daughter wanted to help him hunt wolves together, he only took it lightly. When his daughter really came out of the city wall and came to the forest, he was speechless. Full of surprise, panic. But, while he is deeply in love with his daughter, he is also an authoritarian parent. What's more obvious about this is when the daughter actually came into contact with the Wolf Walker, realized that she could help her father, and planned to discuss it with Goodfellow. Goodfellow didn't care whether she could help him, but what he cared about was that his daughter once again disobeyed Duke Protector's order and ran outside the city wall. This time he chose to follow the order on his behalf and sent her to the laundry room. For a girl who is originally cheerful and lively, such a repressive and rigid environment is undoubtedly extremely destructive to the development of her character. At the climax of the film, the father finally explained "I'm afraid" to the previous series of actions. Although he re-expressed in the movie that he was afraid that he would not be able to depend on each other for his daughter, he would not be able to have a foothold in this strange land. But I personally think the fear expressed here is more of a fear of the situation getting out of control. At the end of the movie, Goodfellow finally became a wolf runner like his daughter. Here Goodfellow is the figure of a loving traditional feudal patriarch.
The second is Duke Protector. When mentioning Duke Protector, we have to mention the religious situation at that time. At that time, European thought was still under the control of the Holy See. Therefore, Protector is a devout Christian. At the end of the movie, Goodfellow, who incarnated as a giant wolf, was holding the protector on the edge of the cliff. Knowing that this time he was going to die, Duke Protector untied his belt and fell into a cliff full of thorns. The protector of the country appears in the movie as a highly authoritarian feudal lord, with an extreme paranoia about the rules, everyone in the city is shrouded in terror - the terror of breaking the rules . In fact, this point is also implied many times in the film, "Do you want to be put on shackles?" This side reflects the strict laws in the city ruled by Duke Protector. The city in the movie is the main city where Duke Protector's castle is located. Although the city seems to be prosperous, many details imply that the city is actually not peaceful, such as the patrols that keep appearing in the movie. They patrolled the city day and night at a uniform pace. The main city is not very peaceful, let alone other places. From the very first appearance, Duke Protector has indicated that he is going to suppress the unrest. The Protector is here the representative of the big landlord class and the ideological bondage.
The third is the heroine Robin. For Robin, her image is simpler than the first two. Here she is the first human to become a wolf walker, and the first to break through the orders of the Protector, while synthesizing the few fragments of her and her father. I summed her up as: the harmony between man and nature, the breakthrough of the rules, the resistance to the patriarchal society.
To sum up the above, Wolf Walker mainly shows the repressed society microcosm before the great social changes in Europe. Including the contradiction between man and nature, the contradiction between the big landlord class and the petty bourgeoisie, the contradiction between the ideological bondage and the need for ideological emancipation between the petty bourgeoisie.
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