The company of wolves

Abstract

The female body, and especially the changes it undergoes during puberty as well as everything related to sexuality has always been a taboo topic, one to be avoided at all costs in cinema. However, a tendency to reclaim all these issues and the right to show them, both explicitly and metaphorically, appeared in the seventies. Thus, there are films like Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976) and The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) which break the rules by showing very explicit scenes. In this article, taking the use of metaphor in The Company of Wolves, (Neil Jordan, 1984) as a basis while making reference to many other films, the breaking of cinematographic silence about female puberty is analyzed.