By Gregory Crofton
The father, a follower of Hare Krishna, wanted to create his own version of a tribe. He succeeded. Except his tribe was his wife and their seven kids, all imprisoned and living on welfare in a small New York City apartment.
Hollywood was the only version of the outside world this father, Oscar Angulo, let his children see, sharing a collection of 5,000 movies. When they weren’t being home-schooled by their mom, the kids spent their time making elaborate props out of yoga mats and cereal boxes so they could reenact scenes from their favorite movies like RESERVOIR DOGS.
Seeing movies recreated by weird kids is not my type of fun. So the much-praised but seemingly boring THE WOLFPACK, kept me away from its run in theaters. And then VICE attached itself to it, helping with distribution and marketing, which to me became an additional reason to stay away. But now, after watching the film on Netflix, it’s clear the rave reviews it received were warranted (it won the 2015 US Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival).
This is a unique film, shot, scored and edited in a way that keeps its subjects, “The Wolfpack,” six long-haired sons of a mountain guide/Beatles fan from South America, afloat between their constrained version of reality and the marvelous Hollywood-inspired illusions they create inside their tiny apartment.
In addition to being a well-made movie, it’s an important documentary because it pushes the genre of filmmaking forward mixing fiction and nonfiction — these kids know the power of a camera better than most — to create a larger truth. It was shot mainly by the director, Crystal Moselle, who follows the brothers around the apartment and eventually out into the world to places like the beach at Coney Island and an apple orchard upstate.
One of the more memorable scenes for me was shot with the oldest son speaking at night about his father in a room lit only by glow of the television. Make time for this film. Moselle, who gained experience working with Ondi Timoner, a well-known doc filmmaker, did wonderful work assembling this complex story, which took more than four years to shoot and complete. It is a coming-of-age story like you’ve never seen.