The Wolfpack

classified 15
Film

Please note: This was screened in Sept 2015

Director
Crystal Moselle
Cast
Bhagavan Angulo, Govinda Angulo, Jagadisa Angulo
Details
90 mins, 2015, USA

A sensation at this year’s Sundance film festival, this stranger-than-fiction documentary depicts the unusual upbringing of six brothers who have spent their childhoods locked away from the outside world by their protective father and whose only reality is via the world of movies they have been obsessively watching and re-enacting. What does happen in an upbringing shaped predominantly by a diet of Tarantino, Scorsese and superhero franchises?

Despite growing up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo siblings knew little of the real New York City or the immediate outside world beyond their doorstep. Their overprotective father kept them shut in their apartment, away from what he deemed the city's dangerous influences. What scraps the brothers did pick up about social interaction, aside from glimpses from their windows and the very rare forays outside, they have learnt through the films that they watch - obsessively. With no friends beyond the family unit, living on welfare and attempting to escape their feelings of isolation and loneliness, their childhood is spent diligently re-enacting their favorite films using elaborate homemade sets and costumes. But when one of the pack escapes, the fantasies begin to unravel as the family must learn how to integrate into the outside world without further disbandment of the brotherhood.

Somewhere between Be Kind Rewind meets Capturing the Friedmans, this is a revealing portrait of family disfunction that inquires into the true nature of identity and creativity. A fascinating look at fandom, the nightmarish consequences of unchecked patriarchy and the pathological evils of insularity.

  • Think you can do as good a re-enactment as the Wolfpack? Watch them do De Niro here and catch the man himself in action in our De Niro season every Sunday at noon throughout August.

× Close

Help us make our website work better for you

We use Google Analytics to gather information on how our website is used. This information helps us to make changes to our website that improve the usefulness and overall experience for our visitors. If you would like to help us to make continuous improvements to our website, please allow us to set "first-party" cookies (only readable by us) so that we can distinguish visitors and gain greater insights.

Allow cookies for analytics Deny cookies for analytics