The Wolf’s Call
The sound of the war
Whoever lives with the cinema knows that there are some myths that circulate in the middle. As an example, “the best action movies come from Hollywood” and “French cinema is boring and confusing”. But, as we well know, the myths are based on false premises, and to prove this we have the great French movie “The Wolf’s Call” (“Le chant du loup”, FRA, 2019) starring Omar Sy, François Civil and Mathieu Kassovitz .
The film features an interesting story developed in one of the most complex military environments in the world, the submarine war field. As Tom Clancy wrote in his book “The Hunt for Red October” (which also provided an excellent movie), the submarines are always at real war with their maneuvers and movements, just missing the trigger – torpedo, in the case.
The film begins on a mission off the coast of Syria, where Titan, a French conventional submarine, will rescue some soldiers infiltrated into the enemy area. The ship’s commander is Grandchamp (Reda Kateb) and his executive officer is D’Orsi (Omar Sy).
Curiously, despite all the technology involved in building a submarine, its performance depends on the qualities of a highly specialized technician, War Acoustic Analyst, or simply AAG, also dubbed the Golden Ear.
This technician has the function of listening to all the noise around the submarine, identifying and classifying what is natural, harmless or posing a threat. This may seem strange, as the viewer is seeing the whole image of the submarine, but in that confined space there is no field of view, everything depends on what is perceived by the sonar and interpreted by the AAG.
In the Syrian mission, the AAG was Chanteraide (François Civil), an extremely competent technician, with a remarkable hearing, although also known for the little respect to superior officers. At that occasion, his skills were demanded to the maximum, because besides an Iranian frigate and helicopter, he was still intrigued by the mysterious sound of an object that did not fit into anything he had ever known before.
Chanteraide remains obsessed with that sound, and seeks to find out more about it. To do so, he invades the archives of the French navy, and just does not go in jail because he succeeds identifying the mysterious object: an ancient Russian submarine that had been disabled for decades. Meanwhile, his former commander, Grandchamp, is assigned to command a nuclear submarine, the Effroyable, with D’Orsi in charge of the Titan.
The two submarines are sent on joint mission, but soon France is surprised by the alarm of a nuclear attack! An intercontinental missile, launched from a submarine off the coast of Russia, heads towards France. Everything leads one to believe that it is a Russian attack, but thanks to Chanteraide’s ear, they discover that it was nothing more than a farce executed by terrorists to force a war between the two countries.
The problem is that, following the French war protocol, in these cases the nuclear submarine must cut off all communications and make the counter-offensive, in this case, another nuclear missile. As the Titan was the nearest vessel, it is up to them now to find the Effroyable and to dissuade him from making the attack – even if it is necessary to sink it!
“The Wolf’s Call” has all the characteristics of the great submarine films, such as “Das Boot” (“Das Boot”, GER, 1981), “Crimson Tide” (USA,1995), “The Enemy Below” (USA, 1957) and the already mentioned “The Hunt for Red October” (USA, 1990).
But in addition to the great special effects and action scenes, “The Wolf’s Call” also has a good story, a well done script, dynamic edition and a great soundtrack. The same can be said about the performance of the protagonists, such as veterans Omar Sy and Mathieu Kassovitz. The young François Civil, despite having few works in the cinema, comes from a long experience in French television.
Despite being a very recent movie, “The Wolf’s Call” is already available in the catalog of Netflix, although it had deserved a minimal passage through the traditional theaters.
“The Wolf’s Call” is a film suitable for those who like war movies without the excess of special effects and endless explosions. Films like this are always a reminder to alert us to the minimum safety margin we live in, especially at a time when insane and irresponsible leaders seem to be prevailing. Hopefully, the war will only remain on the screen.