The Wolfpack

The Angulo family live in an apartment in New York's Lower East Side. Including the mother and father, there are nine of them. The boys spend considerable time re-enacting the contents of their favourite movies using home-made props and make-up. They are obsessed with movies in actual fact. But this can possibly be explained on account of the fact that these boys have more or less remained indoors their whole lives. Their domineering father being the primary reason this decision has been enforced, although the mother seems quite happy with the idea also. The boys seem okay with this situation, which from the outside seems incredibly unnatural and absurd. The boys existence makes me think of the life of a house cat; a type of feline that has been brought up and conditioned to stay indoors, such that it knows no different way of living, despite the fact that such an existence goes completely against the natural way of this type of animal. When its human beings submitting to this sort of thing though, it starts to seem more than a little bit strange.

The Wolfpack certainly has an unusual story to tell. For this reason I was somewhat disappointed with the film. While there is considerable interview material, for some reason there isn't all that much insight and I came away still being none the wiser about how this situation arose and was maintained for so many years. It's about people cut off from society through choice, yet you have to wonder how the social services could have allowed it. Children will go along with things because they know no different, unaware of what damage may be being done. I can't help think that these boys have been deprived of a considerable amount that they may come to fully realise in later life and their mother and father consequently seem unfit parents. The father in particular did not come out of this very well, his position was he was protesting against the system by choosing to not work and instead laze around at home drinking alcohol and watching TV. I wasn't very convinced by this stance. The boys seem surprisingly balanced considering their restrictive upbringing but I never even got a sense of what they felt when they finally emerged outside. So while the source material here is certainly of some interest, I can't say I thought too much of the execution and I left somewhat underwhelmed.

The subjects of the new documentary "The Wolfpack" have to be some of the most odd people I've seen put to film all year. The individuals I'm talking about are a group of brothers who, throughout their childhood, were shut off from society and forced to stay in their New York City apartment. Being home-schooled and in a unique state of seclusion - in which they only got outside nine or ten times a year - they formed a religious love of movies. Without internet and with plenty of time on their hands, they compiled homemade scripts of their most treasured films (which range from "The Dark Knight" to "Gone With the Wind"). This, of course, all for the purpose of remaking them to their own delight. Cinema helps them pass the time and gain access to a bit of the world that they can't actually see themselves.

The opening sequence is most telling, in which they lovingly act out their favorite moments from Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs". It's at once extremely funny, with their cardboard guns and baggy suits, yet haunting in the same sense. It's the definition of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, in which we're not really sure how the filmmakers found these kids, much less were allowed into their lives. The fact that some of this footage even exists is a testament to the superb direction by Crystal Moselle.

I found it captivating from beginning to end. The mystery of why these boys have been treated this way is handled excellently. Nothing is revealed too quickly, partly because the answers aren't all that simple. It's definitely a slow-build, but completely absorbing. You won't be able to take your eyes off this family. The story of their lives is incredibly gripping, and absolutely worthy of this skillfully-made film.

The six Angulo boys, their sister and their mother live in a low-income New York City apartment with their father, Oscar Angulo, who won't let them go outside. Well, some years they get to leave their apartment and some years they don't. They are home schooled, which in the case of these kids, means watching movies all day, transcribing the scripts and then filming their own versions. These feral, Peruvian John Travolta looking teenagers have probably seen Pulp Fiction fifty times, though they most certainly prefer Reservoir Dogs. Normality, to them, is film. The world they find in film is inspiring, and, coupled with the natural tendency of the captured to escape, they break out, running down the streets of Manhattan, only to be chased down by budding documentary filmmaker, Crystal Moselle. The film begins there. Although the documentary disregards some major questions around the reasons for entrapment and isolation, the boys are fascinating and their impact is lasting. This film inspires the big dreamers; those who are looking to break their shackles.

'The Wolfpack' doesn't come together

'The Wolfpack' is a film like no other. Sometimes that works well as it did in 'Inception', 'Pan's Labyrinth' and 'Blue Velvet.' At other times, it fails horribly, like it did in one of David Lynch's latest films (I stopped keeping up after a couple terrible films), 'Inland Empire.' 'The Wolfpack' is not completely terrible. It is interesting and takes on a unique subject. However, the film lacks focus and doesn't address the issues it highlights in any concrete manner.

I have the sense the director, Crystal Moselle, just ran into the family somewhere and decided to film them on a lark. Then after a couple of years, she decided to make a movie of it because graduation time in film school required her to present a film and the footage of nine people holed up in a Lower East Side tenement apartment was the only material she had available. Point is, there was no forethought in what the director/creator was doing, and it shows in the film.

Don't get me wrong. The film is interesting, and it's completely pointless. It's not quite surreal enough to stand on its own; it's far too repetitive for that. A dramatic moment in the film is when five of the brothers finally step out of the apartment together and see a film in a theater. That's it. While it might be dramatic for the brothers, the film doesn't convey that. The brothers also wonder aimlessly around Coney Island, and yes, the whole family takes an outing to a farm.

As a teacher I once had was fond of asking when I presented a paper, "So what?" So what indeed. With a subject this compelling, it's a shame there was only documentation of random repetitiveness. That isn't enough.

Rating: Rent it. It's been a long time since I intensely desired that a film end. It wasn't because I was uncomfortable with the subject, it was the feeling that I was ultimately just watching paint dry that made me want to leave. It's hard to believe that the film is only 80 minutes long.

Although the feelings of claustrophobia in the film's apartment work well on a large screen, there is not enough in the film to make it worth seeing in the theater. However, it wouldn't be a bad rental or better yet, a good sociological treatise. A cursory view of articles about the film tell us far more about the family than the film does, and that's a shame.

Peace, Tex Shelters

The documentary that leaves you with many different feelings. The failure of the father with the outside world, the psychological problems, the desperation of his mother, the silence of his mother maybe the cowardly, the communication of the boys with the father was given in a beautiful flow. More lively documentary with video recordings used in the past. Throughout the film you are watching with a lot of questions and emptiness. There is a lot of information, especially about his brothers, but his sister's world is not mentioned. 84 minutes is less, you think "but then" when the movie is over