Director: Crystal Moselle
Cast: Bhagavan Angulo, Govinda Angulo, Narayana Angulo, Mukunda Angulo, Krisna Angulo, Jagadesh Angulo, Visnu Angulo, Susanne Angulo, Oscar Angulo
Certificate: TBD
Run Time: 82 minutes
Synopsis: With unprecedented access, a documentarian reveals a fascinating portrait of a family discovering the world for the first time without skirting the questions of forced confinement and abuse that shroud them.
To stave off the loneliness of spending their entire lives locked away from society in their Lower East Side Manhattan apartment, six brothers, who dream of venturing out, glean knowledge of the outside world from the Hollywood movies they watch and recreate religiously.
What sets a documentary apart from your standard feature film is its raw observations of real life; that stories woven in truth and fact can be more powerful and compelling than anything that can be scripted. This rings true with Crystal Moselle’s directorial debut THE WOLFPACK: a stranger than fiction story so shocking, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Seven children – ranging in age from 16 through to 24 – forced into societal withdrawal for almost the entirety of their lives and confined to within the walls of their social housing flat on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Home-schooled and intensely curious, they have been protected from everything in the outside world…except Hollywood.
The film begins with Moselle already inside the Angulo family’s apartment, quietly observing ‘the Wolfpack’ recreate and perform some of their favourite scenes from Quentin Tarantino’s PULP FICTION. Audiences aren’t privy to how she got there, when she got there, how she got in, or even where this scene fits in the overall filming timeline. It also fails to explain how this all came about: why a family, who had eschewed society for so long, suddenly acquiesced to a stranger filming their lives and then, allowing that life to be shared with the world.
Likewise, the omission of Moselle’s version of events – her one in a million chance encounter with the Angulo brothers – and commentary on events that occurred during the five years of filming, weakens the film’s exposition and incredulity of the plotline. It leaves the film feeling more like an espial exposé rather than vérité; an eye through the keyhole rather than fly on the wall story that raises more questions than answers.
The opening scene may have been better served with a re-creation of their initial meeting; a crux interpretum if you will, for the premise and the boys love of film: six almost identical half-Peruvian teenagers with very long, flowing black hair (the practice of kesh being a symbol of Hare Krishna faith) running and weaving one after the other down First Avenue in Manhattan’s East Village chased by a tiny, yet determined white woman following her instincts. A Bond-esque segue to an interesting story and tie in to the Bond tribute that audiences glimpse with the film’s title card.
Regardless of these glaring omissions, THE WOLFPACK is an engrossing exposé that will have audiences transfixed as they experience the excitement and disappointment of life’s ‘firsts’ alongside the Angulo brothers.
The Wolfpack had only just begun to venture out as a group the day Moselle inadvertently caught up with them on a New York City street. Raised in a suppressive and isolating environment created by their Peruvian born father, Oscar – a paranoid, self-styled spiritual leader with an aversion to working – The Wolfpack appear on screen to be exceedingly bright, creative, well educated and cared for children thanks to dedication of their mother Susanne, a teacher and former hippie from the American mid-west.
Mukunda (the third youngest brother and ‘alpha’ of the pack) is the most candid about their unorthodox upbringing and his feelings of resentment towards his father Oscar, revealing at one point: ‘we went out nine times one year, once one year, and one year we never left the house’. ‘There are some things you just don’t forgive’ Mukunda’s brother Narayana adds.
Unsurprisingly, all of the Angulo children express similar feelings of resentment to that of Mukunda and Narayana on screen regarding their father as well as their need and hunger for creative expression which has helped to stave off the loneliness. Interestingly, it was their father who first introduced The Wolfpack to Hollywood films specifically, classic and cult films.
As their tastes and interests developed, the boys started to request specific films that further opened their eyes to the world outside the Hollywood norm and an almost obsessive-like passion for anything cinematic. From writing out entire screenplays verbatim to creating lo-fi replications of their favourite films with intricately detailed props, sets and costumes, Hollywood’s imagined worlds became the only world the brothers knew. Their skill with generic household items such as cereal boxes and yoga mats to make film replications was so advanced that Makunda recalls a moment when they became the subject of a Police raid for guns when neighbours reported seeing firearms in the Angulo’s possession.
Whilst the Makunda centric film reveals a whole litany of similar displays of artistic talents, it also alludes to the systemic abuse suffered by The Wolfpack at the hands of their father; a man who, during the filming of the film, was the only person in the family to have a key to get in or to get out of the apartment. This blurring of lines between reality and unreality is evinced in Mukunda’s recollection of discovering the world for the first time on his own in January 2010 … wearing a Michael Myers mask in broad daylight on the streets of Manhattan.
Despite its flaws – and yes, there are many – THE WOLFPACK is an uplifting tale of hope and innocence as six young men take a step towards freedom and towards discovering the real world for the first time. It’s about understanding and asserting one’s creative independence when it screams to be released.
THE WOLFPACK is an unbelievably fascinating tale that will have you riveted to your seat until the end when you have to leave with more questions than answers.
A release date is yet to be scheduled for THE WOLFPACK in the UK but you can watch a clip from the movie here.
