Movie 32: Cub

Starring: Maurice Luijten, Evelien Bosmans, Titus De Voogdt, Stef Aerts,  Jan Hemmanecker.

Director: Jonas Govaerts.

Much like The Curse of Downer's Grove, this is another film that I know very little about...but I do know more about it than I did the aforementioned movie-such as it having some fairly solid reviews and being Belgian(I think, anyway) and maybe about child Werewolves?-and am kinda hopeful that it will treat me better than Downer's Grove did.  Like Grove, I picked this up in a desire to see something that was released this year and that I hadn't seen before because I sometimes like to break up the monotony of doing movies I've seen before.

This will be my second attempt at keeping up with a blog post while trying to follow subtitles, but Asmodexia went okay, I guess, so maybe this'll be okay. There were some rad looking trailers on the DVD I might need to look up, too.  But, okay, away we go.

Few seconds in and I've found two things I dig already: The Monster actually looks pretty cool (and is a practical effect, not that I'm one of those guys who bitches about such things) and the main score is very catchy and arresting.  Plus, Werewolves. 

Y'know, I was a boy scout.  Well, okay, not really:funny story.  I was a cub scout and I decided not to go ahead with the scouts because, well, I just wasn't that into it.  It was a little lame, really, but my Mom wanted me to do it so I did.  So, during the graduation ceremony, I was forced to stand off to the side on stage when the boy scout leader person mentioned "drop outs" in her speech...it was kind of embarrassing, but even then I found it kind of funny.  I still do.  My scouting experience was not like it is in Cub, though.  For one, there was way less slapping of the butts of cute blonde Women.  Second, there was way more bullying.  I'm not sure we ever went camping really, either.  There were never any Werewolves, no matter what jokes other cub scouts made about me.

I'm already fairly certain the actual villain in this film probably isn't the Werewolf.  Not sure who actually is-the laid-off factory workers make sense, as do the morons riding the go-cart in the potatoe field-but I'm betting the Werewolf is warning people or something.  

We didn't have "den leader" scouts when I was around...maybe the boy scouts did...but if there were I probably woulda taken a swing at them.  Giving a twelve year old power over other twelve year olds would almost certainly end badly, much as it does in this film.  That kid is a DICK.  Also, these scout leaders are kind of tools.  

Scariest thing to happen so far was when my stupid cat fell off the back of the couch.  Idiot.  She's fine, just dumb.

The music remains very pretty and ominous.  I rather like it.  Other than that, there's not much here so far.  We have very little understanding of the main character, Sam, other than that he's a withdrawn and imaginative kid and is picked on by his fellow scouts and, apparently, his scout leader.  Well, one of them anyway, the other one seems to mean well.  There's an undercurrent of sexuality-mostly in sexual awakening of young boys, which is a sentence I really would rather not type again-as the boys pull out their playboy magazine(which is taken by our Wolf kid or whatever), mention receiving sexual acts, and Sam using a pair of binoculars to spy on the female cook...that seems to be the only real subtext.

Well, the plot as thickened a little.  Sam has made contact-maybe even a burgeoning friendship-with Kai the Werewolf and we now know there's some weird guy with booby traps everywhere killing guys in track suits(living the dream)...y'know, other than knowing the woods are filled with traps and a maybe killer werewolf kid, the game of capture the flag they go to play looks kinda rad.  

Turns out: not a Werewolf.  That's a little disappointing.  It goes to show how effective the camera work and imagery is, though: the shots of Kai are so fleeting and his mask so interesting looking that I thought he was special effects.  Turns out it's just a feral kid with a mask.  The kid actor does a phenomenal job with his movements, too.  

I guess there is another level of subtext happening here, really: along with that sexual awakening stuff comes a certain element of alpha male behavior.  Sam is constantly bullied by Baloo the scout leader...and then when Sam sees Baloo with the camp cook making with some backwoods nookie, there's another violent reaction from Baloo and his dog.The Dog, somewhat predictably (and horribly) is murdered by Kai and Sam in an action of primal vengeance...which, from Sam's perspective, is cathartic but for us a fairly vile action. From the perspective of Kai it's the same as any animal action...it's an interesting enough scene.  Not an easy one to watch, but at least something occurred and we've got some story actually building.

Poor Kris The Scout Leader...he was an alright guy before getting a knife jammed in his eye.  Baloo, on the other hand, is a total shitheel and I hope he dies horribly.  

Not bad, kids!  Bad guy drives over a whole troop of cub scouts (that sentence I kinda actually always DID want to write), and Sam and his Buddy manage to kill the guy with a fairly intelligent ruse.  Nice action sequence.

Baloo got taken down.  That makes me very happy.

Oh, shit, this is getting ugly.  Kai is getting frisky with Jasmin the camp cook.  Now this is some unsettling stuff.  This movie actually went pretty nutty all at once.  Pretty large body count very quickly.

I think I might have hit the nail on the head: this movie very much is about savagery, sexuality, and alpha mentality.  Sam and Kai bond over that savagery, and then fight over sexual dominance over Jasmin...Sam takes quite a few beatings and slowly gets more and more aggressive...the villain even presents a "kill or be killed" ultimatum for Sam.  Sam is quite the survivor, too, really.  

This movie actually has some things in common with films like The Devil's Backbone.  Both films feature children in very adult situations, as having a lot of thoughts and feelings that are confusing and unsettling.  There's nothing fun or silly about being a kid.

Ooh, some nice camerawork happening as Sam and Kai fight: the camera switches angles to make the two characters indistinguishable as they wrestle for the knife.  They have become the same in that pit, having seen all the carnage and mayhem.  Their parallels meet and end.

Pretty dark ending here, actually.  Unlike Downer's Grove, though, it's an earned one.  There's an established lunacy to our lead character, comparisons between him and Kai are very pronounced, acts of violence are presented very matter-of-fact, and (really) all of the characters were kind of assholes that we didn't mind seeing as victims.  The last act of this film really was very aggressive, artistically and technically sound, and a very logical conclusion to a story about savagery among human beings, particularly when attempting to display dominance.  

Final Thoughts: Cub really does a pretty extraordinary job pulling itself together after a fairly scattered first half.  Looking back at it now the first half does some okay work in setting up themes and motifs, but it still doesn't quite find it's way until that halfway point.  There are some story slip ups-I don't think we needed any half-assed backstory about Sam being a "troubled child" or anything in the end-and tonal shifts, but that last act more than makes up for its limping beginning.  It's interesting to note that it has one female character and she basically is almost literally a sexual object. 

 It isn't a sexist film, though: given that the point of view is from an entirely male cast, ranging from horny young boys to adult men who are very much predatory, Jasmine is offered up only as those male figures see her.  It's very much a film about being male, and not a very flattering one.  From the boys ogling Jasmine, to her flirtation with Balloo, to Kai being interested in her body and ultimately to Sam's frustrated final moments with her, we have a view of Women that is actually despicable, and that is the entire point.  Men are viewed as aggressors from Sam's point of view: his fellow scouts bully him, his scout-master bullies him, Kai befriends but ultimately betrays him (as does his other scout master, at least as Sam sees it)...even earlier when the scout masters get into a fight with two track-suit wearing morons, we're offered up a view of masculine behavior as predatory, aggressive, and animalistic.  In short, Men of all ages are basically animals who seek dominance and sexual gratification over any sort of society or companionship and, ultimately, are only the slightest provocation away from becoming monsters.  It's very Lord Of The Flies but with booby traps and backwoods psychos and, most importantly, a Woman to further showcase masculine degeneration.  It's pretty smart stuff in the end, even if it was sometimes awkwardly presented.

Final Rating: Three and a half stars.