Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
When Crystal Moselle was invited into the Angulos’ cramped Lower East Side apartment, it was the first time the secluded family of nine had ever entertained company. Sundance documentary hit The Wolfpack, now available on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video, follows the six Angulo brothers as they narrate their bizarre upbringing through meticulously detailed reenactments of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Dark Knight.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDbqcMfUdlI]Collectors of thousands of DVDs and VHS tapes, Peruvian-American brothers Bhagavan, Govinda, Mukunda, Narayana, Jagadisa, and Krsna — who proudly refer to themselves as “The Wolfpack” (no little sisters allowed) — spend their days watching, dissecting, and reenacting their favorite films. Among those auteurs chosen are the likes of Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, and David O. Russell, and the brothers perform, write (the brothers write down each line of dialogue word-for-word), and design their recreations with whatever materials are available to them in their microscopic Manhattan apartment. These boys sound like they need to get out more, do they? If only it were that simple.
Raised by a controlling Peruvian father and demure Midwestern mother, the Angulo brothers are forbidden to leave their tiny, government-funded home unattended. In fact, the most the isolated, homeschooled “pack” has ventured outside in a single year was a startling nine times. While Moselle certainly could have pried about the extent of their father’s unusual control (that many would categorize as abuse), the director instead spent endless hours watching the brothers reinvent and record their favorite cinematic moments, a hobby that became a lifeline to the outside world and eventually encouraged them to break out of their four walls. Moselle met the Angulo brothers dressed as Tarantino’s hit men on one of their rare outdoor field trips and struck up a conversation about, you guessed it, film. After exchanging information and Moselle realizing how different, yet charismatic and brilliant the brothers are, she decided to get a little closer to their bizarre bubble of parental paranoia and artistic obsession.
Filmed very much like a home movie, The Wolfpack is an intimate invitation into the lives of a family that’s fallen through the cracks of society, featuring a second generation desperate to break the cycle. While Moselle’s fly-on-the-wall footage offers plenty of “whys” and “hows” — especially the forbiddance of going outdoors but the allowance of watching hyperviolent films — The Wolfpack doesn’t frame a story of right or wrong, and it doesn’t negatively marginalize the Angulos’ unconventional situation. Instead, the coming-of-age doc analyzes how deeply one can love the art of film and how an obsession can become both an escape as well a way of life (note their own Tarantino-esque dialect). Moselle could have made her movie about a lot of things, but instead made a visibly conscience choice to let her subjects tell their journey of self-discovery and self-salvage from a potentially crippling case of cabin fever.
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Photos: Everett Collection
