MOVIE REVIEW
“THE WOLF HOUSE” (“LA CASA LOBO”)
Not rated. In Spanish and German with subtitles. On VOD and Cinema Worcester.
Grade: A
Inspired by the horrifying true story of the Colonia Dignidad, a Nazi-connected cult in a remote part of central Chile, where German settlers and Chileans formed a secluded, secretive, agricultural commune in 1961, the award-winning animated film “The Wolf House” (“La Casa Lobo”) is the best thing out there for fans of sophisticated, surreal dark fantasy. Think of it as a Chilean version of “Coraline” with Nazis.
According to online sources, the real Colonia was founded by a German criminal accused of child sexual abuse in Germany and a place where such abuse took place and where dissidents were imprisoned and tortured during the Pinochet dictatorship.
After what appears to be actual archival footage of Colonia Dignidad to the musical strains of Wagner, the film begins, retaining the square aspect ratio of the live-action images, with the escape of Maria (Amalia Kassai), a young woman who flees the Colonia and is pursued in the woods by a wolf (Rainer Krause). The wolf speaks with Nazi menace in his voice and calls out to her to give up and turn herself in. She take refuge in a house, where there is some food and a pair of pigs squat in the bathroom.
Before you can say “Beauty and the Beast,” Maria, who has a bit of Circe in her, transforms the pigs into humans named Ana and Pedro, using her magic ball and lamp. The characters, including the wolf, speak and sing in Spanish and German, switching between the two at will. The transformation and many other metamorphoses take place before our eyes, and this is one of the most magical aspects of “The Wolf House.”
Combining elements of “The Three Little Pigs,” the aforementioned “Coraline,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and real-life child-abusing Nazi torturers, directing partners Joaquin Cocina and Cristobal Leon, making an auspicious feature debut, achieve a dizzying level of animation strangeness. Visually, the film features 2D and 3D furniture sliding around the floors and walls, pigs transformed into humans and two-dimensional drawings morphing into 3D stop-motion figures made out of papier mache and other materials and then undoing them all in the manner of elemental stop-motion animation.
Terry Gilliam and the Quay Brothers would love this film. Ditto for the wizard of Czech animation Jan Svankmajer (“Alice,” “Faust”), whose eldritch influence is everywhere to be seen.
I was surprised that the lamps and vases did not break into Disney songs. Some of the creepier imagery recalls the mechanical special effects the brilliant Rob Bottin created for John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” Blue eyes haven’t looked this scary since the last time Lisbeth Salander kicked butt. In fact, the film is so disturbingly weird I was grateful for its 75-minute running time. Yikes y felicidades.
(“The Wolf House” contains disturbing and nightmarish images.)
"dazzling" - Google News
May 15, 2020 at 05:06PM
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‘Wolf House’ disturbing yet dazzling dark fantasy - Boston Herald
"dazzling" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2SitLND
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