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Howling Of The Wolfpack

by Andrew McDonald 9 years ago

Gobsmacked by THE PACK.

I’m certainly no stranger to having a good old reminisce about seeing a film and as an afterthought find some significance with what was happening in my life at the time allowing the film to become permanently ingrained in the moment. This time I’ll cast sentimental urges aside and focus on the now for in the days following a festival screening of Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack I’ve been left with the most overwhelming sense of sadness which I believe needs to be addressed. The film has kept me in a bit of a daze and has continued to send the occasional prodding shockwave to the system, a kind of reminder of what I had witnessed. I don’t intend to review the film so much as to explore or examine this funk that I’ve been left in with hopes that the weight will slide from my shoulders. If putting pen to paper can help me disconnect then so be it as The Wolfpack popped my sheltered little bubble and forced me to come to terms with and accept the tired and ugly fact that it’s one hell of a cruel world out there. Furthermore, it proposed a terrifying likelihood that what I saw might just be an unfortunate snap shot of a ‘happens-more-often-than-you-think’ type of tragedy. In any case I’m compelled to exercise some demons while this unsettling cloud rests overhead.

 

A powerful documentary will often haunt me for a long time afterwards as in most cases it rightly should. It’s a fact that I’m acutely aware of because in some instances it may take years to completely shuffle off depending on the magnitude of the experience. Should the film have that profound effect I also like to verbalise in the moment, I’m helplessly prone to release a barrage of ‘no shits!’ ‘Holy shits!’ and ‘I can’t believe this shit goes on’. Now if I really enjoyed a piece of fiction I might recommend it for a period but as the memory fades so does the ever-so-significant free press bestowed upon it, unless of course I happen to re-watch and fall in love all over again. On any given day Citizen Kane will get bumped from my top spot for Raging Bull or Vertigo but I never make a point of insisting anyone go and see these films whereas with documentaries I rarely need to see a good one more than once. Providing I’m hit by the sheer impact of the story or left marvelling at the director’s balls for trespassing guerrilla style into unwanted territory, I’ll keep faithfully showering it with praise for years to come. I have an arsenal of documentaries committed to memory that I could recommend right now with utmost certainty that the listener will find of value, all of which I have only seen once and in most cases over five years ago. Where scripts fail to ever be recalled again I can always manage to navigate through the plot of a good documentary with photographic precision regardless of the time passed. It’s all there swimming around my mind ready to surface on command, awaiting its recommendation to the next unsuspecting victim that dares utter the words ‘seen any good films?’

 

In six months or so we may be referring this film as Academy Award winning documentary The Wolfpack – it would be fantastic to see it get captured in that Oscar noise. It would also be comforting to know that the lives of its subjects will continue to soar and enter our stratosphere for years to come. They certainly show the tenacity to stick around and prove to be more than deserving enough to have their names up in lights but to reflect on what was presented in the film alone (regardless of what the future may bring) I must say has left me with a heavy heart. To briefly recap, The Wolfpack is the result of filmmaker Crystal Moselle happening to stumble across six young, long haired, oddly dressed and painfully reserved teenage boys in her neighbourhood. The Angulo brothers: Mukunda, Bhagavan, Govinda, Narayana, Jagadisa (now Eddie) and Krsna (now Glenn). Their very manner and appearance was striking enough to encourage Moselle to uncover more about their origins particularly as she had failed to notice them around an area of which she was all too familiar prior to this encounter. Although none of this is revealed onscreen, Moselle has since confirmed the nagging question of how she earned their trust and ultimately how she was granted access to the boys’ home by wooing them with her involvement in filmmaking. What Moselle finds is that the boys have been confined to a small lower east Manhattan apartment for their entire lives at the insistence of a controlling and clearly dangerous father. Their loyalty lies with their defenceless mother, a subject of the film who herself undergoes a monumental transformation and with anguish we observe their harrowing journey to an external freedom.

 

I say external because their one saving grace that the film establishes immediately is that The Wolfpack (coined affectionately by the director) have found solace and liberation via an abundance of DVDs. Movies are the one pastime they have not been denied and they boast at having seen over ten thousand. Coupled with the endless time on their hands we see how favourites like Pulp Fiction and Batman Begins shape their understanding of the world and how it leaves a firm impression on their personalities and their principles alike. Through a series of revealing interviews their shared background is unravelled and Moselle’s questions are occasionally responded to eerily as though in character with dramatic emphasis on every word until you can’t help but conclude that a scene from a film is no doubt filtering through. We learn how The Wolfpack became imprisoned as their father put barriers in place for the boys’ own safety, and he continues to do so off-screen within the film’s lifespan, eventually restricting their view of even the streets below. His ultimate justification is to prevent them from New York City’s many evils that lurk beyond the apartment’s perimeters and thus the mystery of their sheltered livelihood begins to slowly and seamlessly make sense within this realm. Their father’s depraved and possibly paranoid rule, rooted in a need for control escalates to a colossal nightmare. The boys can count the amount of times they have stepped outside their door as children and explain how that privilege dwindled until one year they were not permitted to leave at all. Within time, their fate is sealed and the restrictions continue to mount until one boy, Mukanda, courageously ventures out into the wild, setting off a chain reaction that slowly empowers each sibling allowing those very barriers to come crashing down thus forming the basis for the film.

 

What’s touching is that despite such emotional and plainly unsanitary adversities, not to mention a drastically uncommon existence, the brothers have formed a bond that keeps them unified and attune with one another and they seem more grounded than say the very people which pass by their apartment sixteen floors below. At no time do they raise their voices or physically hurt one another and although individually each boy gives confessions of misery and taxing grief, combined they seem very much at ease. The presence of movies plays an important role unto itself, felt almost as some ghostly protagonist, an outlet that feeds them the heroic strength and wisdom to survive this ordeal and enable their path to freedom.

 

The most amazing discovery in the film for me was how accurately The Wolfpack can mimic entire scripts in perfect synchronicity to the original. Their re-enactments were played out with absolute conviction and their devotion to the craft left me equally as dumbfounded as to their dire living conditions. Performances of A Dark Knight and Reservoir Dogs are executed so affectionately and precisely that it allows you to believe you’re watching a theatre reproduction, and one that’s cleverly utilised every last inch of available apartment space. Furthermore they have fashioned the necessary props and make-up to realise each piece and embody each character. The iconic Bat-suit is impressively authentic, all one has to do is squint for the costume to become uncanny and yet what’s astonishing is that close up, it has been meticulously pieced together from cereal boxes and yoga mats – an absolute testament to the boys ingenuity.

 

Any annoyances at such a heavy predicament were not held exclusively for the boys alone. I recognised a tier of frustration for Moselle as she gets caught up in a tug of war between benefactor and filmmaker. the filmmaker grants several social awakenings for the boys, things often taken for granted, like a trip to the beach or the cinema. These ventures become bold moments of triumph, and just as easily as you loosen up and bask in their victories the film is quick to remind you of the gravity of their situation. After one successful outing the camera turns to the father for a much anticipated interview. He offers very little into his mindset but tries to alleviate the situation by agreeing that mistakes were made. We have already been familiarised with his life, his journey to America, how he met the mother and how he originally wanted to father ten children and create a new civilization all for his own of which he would assume a role as their ruler. The mother has fallen prey to this cultish agenda and the children have been raised in such an insufferable state of fear that has kept them fittingly subdued. In an attempt at initiating forgiveness he is asked if he would be willing to apologise to the boys, the question is poorly diverted and as an audience member you can’t help but own the filmmakers tongue-biting dissatisfaction. Movie aside, it is after all his house and most certainly his rules and had Moselle shoved any further or made the mistake of aggravating the pack leader you could only guess that she would have lost the rare opportunity to share this incredible story, and so the only appropriate response is none at all.

 

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If I’ve cast out any spoilers I dare say it’s not ruined be any means as The Wolfpack is something that quite literally must be seen to be believed, and despite the obvious assumption that we are setting foot into a sick and claustrophobic world, through the enormous talent and imagination of the brothers, their tiny enclosure manages to burst through the screen. To digress, I have to point out that I was reminded of two films whilst watching this. The first one that popped in there was the South Korean movie Oldboy which is a deranged ‘what if’ glimpse into the mental and physical repercussions of a man who has been locked away alone in a hotel room with nothing but a television and no lead as to why he’s even been put there. The ‘what if’ scenario is clearly explained here as to what can and has transpired in reality when the television set becomes the mentor. It’s a curious case study and one that strangely seems to recur in my mind, I always joke that I will never be a bored retiree as long as I have movies but then I also wonder as to the mental consequences of such a prospect when it’s actually handed to you. Like the ‘stranded-on-a-desert-island’ game: what five albums or five films would you take knowing that you would have no choice but to carry out your days watching and listening to the same thing over and over again. Gilligan managed three successful years on this hypothetical! Whereas here we are able to see the literal effects first hand and despite obvious social ailments the morals and ethics of The Wolfpack are positively intact!

 

Other than Oldboy I was also reminded of a scene from Martin Scorcese’s The King Of Comedy. Robert DeNiro’s plays Rupert Pupkin, an obsessive, unstable man who’s desperate desire to become a famous comedian finds him embarking upon perilous territory in order to pursue his dream. Scorcese beautifully captures this desire in an intimate scene where we observe Rupert while he’s playing make-believe in his bedroom. He imagines he were a guest on a talk show complete with cardboard cut-outs of Liza Minnelli and Jerry Lewis; the fantasy spell is continually broken as his mother calls from upstairs ‘who are you talking to?’ which breaks Rupert’s concentration only to leave him embarrassed and thus infuriated with her. I remember when I first saw this scene, I instantly recognised that Scorsese had tapped into something both unique and private and I found myself exclaiming ‘oh, so other people do that too? It’s not just me?’

 

So outside of a strict lesson in never taking your freedom for granted what also struck me was how their re-enactments were not so much a labour of love but a rite of passage. It was everything I loved to do as a child, mimic what I’d seen in films and spend hours on end playing characters in my mind whilst virtually pacing around the garage lost in such thoughts. Essentially it felt like watching six kindred spirits and their imagination was not only infectious but oddly reminiscent as their sense of wonder ran rampart with a true sense of purpose. The happier this made The Wolfpack the harder the melancholy hit me like a ton of bricks. One brother even points out that although their theatrical recreations might seem silly, it was something they took very seriously and once you’re acquainted with their story you can’t help but feel every bit as devoted to each cardinal performance as they are. As I watched these boys do the very thing that gave me hours of enjoyment as a child but executed under such duress it gave the act of role playing a do or die quality. I even felt a slight guilt in having the opportunity to simply play for fun and not with some unspoken notion that it would help keep a lid on my sanity. People in the cinema laughed when the boys re-created some of Tarantino’s most recognised scenes verbatim but I could not bring myself to join along, as I was sadly all too aware that I was possibly witnessing the worst case of child abuse ever committed to film.

 

By the time it all finished I felt some strange compulsion to help, bring aid or relief as though I could somehow reach out and make things better for these kids. But in truth neither help nor sympathy was required. It wasn’t as though I’d just seen The Cove and vowed never to eat sushi again, or in the case of say Dear Zachary it was not like anyone had been horrifically killed amidst a mountain of shocking twists. The Wolfpack didn’t seek assistance; in fact it was quite the contrary, we’re encouraged to cheer them on as they carve a new life for themselves right before our eyes. What’s more is they have assimilated an ambition and a willingness to confront their future head on. As a team they have already overcome huge hurdles at home, they have come to terms with and grasped their horrific circumstances and from what I understand in some cases, have since gone on to fly the coop, gain employment related to their passions and found love. So I take the utmost gratification in knowing they will be more than fine and for my part I simply have to allow this state of numbness to pass. If anything I should be thankful that The Wolfpack was able to achieve a restored faith in the potential of movies. I sometimes wrestle with my own thoughts as to whether the endless hours camped in front of the screen could be better spent elsewhere and yet this film spoke directly to the movie-lover in me with a clear message that they are important and that escapism is important too. That universally shared, all-encompassing high that only a good film can bring should be celebrated and not dismissed as fleeting or a waste of time. As The Wolfpack themselves acknowledged, films have saved their lives and what I have certainly acknowledged is that this one is cemented in the doco-vault not likely to leave any time soon. Now I strongly recommend you go see it!

 

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Posted by: Andrew McDonald

363 thoughts on “Howling Of The Wolfpack”

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