The Wolf House (Cristobal Leon & Joaquin Cocina, Chile)
Centuries of children have dreamed of ominous woods, threatening wolves and other fearsome fictional creations, but with their feature debut Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña have drawn upon their own folklore and fairy tales to craft this visually stunning stop-motion animated film out of paint, paper, tape and furniture.
In a picture-perfect valley of the Andes, a rural colony is home to German immigrants and their offspring. At first ‘The Wolf House’ cleverly pretends to be an archival film singing the praises of ‘Colonia Dignidad’, but the film soon turns out to be a perverted and disturbing tale, feeding on familiar children’s stories – from Little Red Riding Hood to The Three Little Pigs – bringing out the darkness of the events it relates to.
‘The Wolf House’ is the place where Maria takes refuge after she has escaped from the colony. The wolf is Paul Schaeffer, a former SS Officer, who has moved to Chile, a notorious paedophile and a zealous torturer working for Pinochet and the head of the Colony. As if in a dream the house reacts to Maria’s feelings and transforms her stay into a nightmarish experience.
Sometimes reminiscent of an ‘Eraserhead’-style Lynchian nightmare turned into sculpture, paintings and stop-motion, beasts become human, a body forms out of a head like something out of science fiction, and inside every constrained girl is an eager bird desperate to fly free.
73 mins, 2017
At Barbican book tickets
Directors’ Biographies
Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña have been working together since 2007. Their films have been selected for many international film festivals and their work has been shown at museums and biennial exhibitions in Latin America, as well as in spaces worldwide including the Whitechapel Gallery, the Guggenheim Museum New York, the AJG Gallery in Seville (2012) and the Venice Biennial (2013). ‘The Wolf House’ (La Casa Lobo) is their first feature film. It premiered in the Forum at the last Berlinale, where it received the Caligari Award. It also received a Special Jury Mention at the Annecy Festival.
