Dresden: Love and Loss
First off, I’ll say that I’m amazed Carrie managed to restrain herself from reviewing Dresden Files this week, as the main creature introduced is none other than our friend lupine lycanthrope, aka werewolf. Carrie, for those of you who don’t know, is quite the werewolf professional, so I do look forward to her two cents in the comments of this post.
The actor who plays Harry Dresden is skirting the thin line between powerful acting and melodrama. I’m still giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I have to admit I’m wondering why the writers are putting him in this position in the first place. Out of nowhere he seems to fall madly in love this week. He plays it strong, but we’re never really given a reason for this sudden passion.
Dresden’s love angle was probably designed to parallel the real Romeo & Juliet (in werewolf form) story between the FBI agents. Following some ancient formula–Kill Nine; Remove the Sign–this agent–whom we infer, as the story progresses, contracted lycanthropy digging up Bosnia graves–has been first infecting, then killing victims in order to recover her own lost humanity.
Ironic.
Anyway, Dresden’s love interest is intended victim number 9, the final piece of the recipe. However, the werewolfian FBI agent’s partner in crime becomes unintentionally infected, and sneaks up on his lady-love as she’s about to finish off Dresden. She kills her own love, inadvertantly, and he lives (dramatically) just long enough to inform the audience that, oops, he was number 9, and so now she is healed. She reverts to human form and gazes sadly at her lost love.
Dresden’s love, on the other hand, remains infected! At least you can’t blame the writers for going cliche on this bit. Normally, the hero gets the girl, but Dresden, with his dry wit and somber outlook, works better as a slightly tortured loner.
There are some great scenes in this episode where the fevered victim is dream-speaking to the ghost of her dead friend. The cinematography is very edgy without being vertiginous, and it evoked a very creepy feel. The special effects budget, on the other hand, must have been used up, because we got a couple crappy CGI shots of a werewolf, the famous yellow contact lenses, and some fangs. For the most part they did a good job keeping the scary bits in the shadows, where they are scariest anyway.
Since the voice over is one of my favorite parts about this series, I’ll leave you with Dresden’s quote showing his dark view of humanity:
Animals. Sometimes I think that’s really all we are–driven by instinct, the need to survive; and if you really wanna see someone at their most primative, all you have to do is just throw them in a cage.
Carrie said,
Wrote on February 13, 2007 @ 3:08 pm
Heh heh…yes, I do have a professional interest in werewolves. And I’ll tell ya’, one of the biggest reasons I decided to write about werewolves is because I’m so often disappointed by them everywhere else. It’s very rare to see anything that breaks out of the “ravaging man-beast” and “struggling against the monster within” stereotype. And…this episode did not break out of it. Yellow contact lenses. Panting and growling. Sheen of sweat. Bad CGI man-beast. We got it.
I continue to be disappointed by The Dresden Files, which is why I’m not inclined to review it. The pieces are all good, I love the urban wizard idea. But it’s not coming together. The stories don’t startle or interest me, the dialog is uninspired for the most part, and the plots depend on the main characters being vaguely stupid.
I’ve got more to say about werewolves. I’ll post something in the next day or so.