Written By Alejandra Moffat, Joaquín Cociña & Cristóbal León

Directed By Joaquín Cociña & Cristóbal León

Starring Amalia Kassai & Rainer Krause

Released 2018

Young Maria flees the colony she had spent her whole life. Stumbling upon an abandoned home in the woods, Maria sets up her knew place of dwelling and attempts to rebuild her existence. Her surrounding environment seems safe, keeping in the little pigs she’s taking care of, and keeping out the big bad wolf that still searches for her. However, the very things that have provided a state of security and comfort for Maria, have suddenly begun to deconstruct, turning what was once a humble abode into a hostel imprisonment. Desperate to be rescued from the teeth of hungry hunters, who devise a plan to literally devour Maria, she has no choice but to call out to the same predator she ran away from, the only one who can save her…or so he tells you.

Story

In 1961, German Nazi soldier Paul Schäfer founded a commune, located in South Chile, calling it “Colonial Dignidad” (Dignity Colony). It was proclaimed to be a community of love and unity, but in reality, it was one of the most horrendous and abusive cults that ever existed. Schäfer teamed up with Chile’s military ruler Gen. Augosto Pinochet to interrogate and torture opponents of the regime. It was recorded that about 100 people were murdered there, as well as 300 Germans and Chileans who lived there and experience severe sexual, physical, and mental abuse. However, during its residency, Schäfer would periodically create false recordings of the camp, portraying it to be one of peace and respect for all. They portrayed the residents as being thankful to be there, all seemingly to live a fulfilled and joyous life. Not only would they distort their true nature to the outside world, but Schäfer would also tell concocted fables to the children of the camp, warning them of the “dangers” that waited for them outside those walls, and made them believe they wouldn’t be able to trust anyone, not even their own family. La Casa Lobo (The Wolf House) illustrates one of those stories Schäfer and his militant would spread, from the perspective of Schäfer as the storyteller.

We open with one of the actual videos Colonial Dignidad used to promote their lifestyle and prosperity. Then we get straight into 2 hours of a very abstract and impressionistic style of the narrative. There’s not a lot of context as to what we’re watching at first, with the old home video being played and then immediately the story by Schäfer, which we don’t know is being told by him either. In fact, it wasn’t until I did some research on the meaning of it all that I learned what and who it was based on and the incredible history. The first time watching La Casa Lobo, I really didn’t grasp what I was watching at all, it was honestly difficult for me to keep up with the commentary of the whole piece. It could have been the continuous disorienting scene to scene, or that they were speaking in German and Spanish interchangeably, so I had to read subtitles throughout the film. Not to discredit the artistry, I think Cociña & Cristóbal are both brilliant filmmakers, but it was a challenge to follow along the first time viewing. After the second time, and knowing the background, it all just clicked and its overall impact was very impressive. They did a superb job at taking you through the life of the main character “Maria” of running away from the camp, spending years on her own, and then showing the decay of it all and ultimately how she still has to depend on “The Wolfs” (Schäfer) for her safety. It’s not a happy story by any means, the resolve digresses from Maria’s overall growth that she exhibited previously, and the arch returns to its starting point, but with Maria changing her heart towards her captor.

Imagery & Production

Besides writing and directing, Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León also did the entire art direction and animation, along with Art Director Natalia Geisse. They created these incredible, almost life-sized, sets and figurines, I’m assuming in order to have more range of movement and access to construct and deconstruct. It took them 5 years to create this 73 minute film, which may seem like a tremendous amount of time; however, as someone who has dabbled in claymation and stop motion, I know it can take hours if not days just to do 60 seconds of footage, so 5 years seems rather appropriate. They used multiple locations to create, including art institutions and art museums throughout Central and South America. This was also their first feature-film, although they have created other short-form pieces prior, but taking on a full length project with minimal crew, entirely stop motion, where they are building and destroying as apart of their execution, having a hand full of voice actors, then putting it all together as a packaged film in only 5 years, that is what is most remarkable about this entire masterpiece. These two artists really obstructed the norms of storytelling and narrative filmmaking, but I think the result and impact of leaving an everlasting impression was truly successful.

I’ve watched my fair share of oddity films and eccentric visual art, of course I am always searching for more to indulge in. Although I enjoy most of the weirdness I discover, there are a few that I’ve forced myself to get through while my brain felt like it was melting out of my ear canals because of the high level of absurdity. The best way I can describe La Casa Lobo was a blend of both whimsical astral projection through an enchanted children’s book and unhinged mental illness splattered on burnt toast. There were moments where my retinas felt so strained from trying to find some sort of focal point before falling down another rabbit hole of chaos and sensory pandemonium. The artwork is phenomenal, cunning, captivating, hypnotizing, absolutely brilliant and nothing less than pure original genius. This film is soaked in bohemian expression, and is truly revolutionary as its own powerhouse of creativity. The amount of imagination that was materialized, and fabricated, destroyed and then re-designed out of those ashes, is like that which I have never seen before. Cociña and León are outstanding architects who engineered and brought to life a fever dream, and I immediately became a huge fan of their work. That being said though, La Casa Lobo is not necessarily soft to digest or easy on the eyes. Visually, it’s as if I am watching how one experiences a lucid nightmare, where nothing stays the same for long before the literal floor boards are set on fire right beneath your feet and suddenly you’re standing in a bottomless pit of milk and mud for no apparent reason. I’m just completely in awe of the entire delivery of this production.

Performance

The talented Amalia Kassai voiced all 3 of our main characters, “Maria”, “Ana”, and “Pedro.” There wasn’t much tonal difference she had to portray, they all had very soft and light voices, but it was extremely impressive to hear her speak in Spanish and German interchangeably throughout a sentence. A little more history in regards to the origins of this story, many residents of “Colonial Dignidad” were able to speak both languages fluently since they were residing in Chile but had many German occupants. Rainer Krause spoke as “The Wolf,” who was also assumed to be portraying Paul Schäfer. He would exchange German and Spanish fluently as well. What was additionally fascinating was to hear their accents change whenever they would switch languages, even if it was mid sentence, and both sounded like it was their native tongue.

The overall performances were just simply eerie and spectral. All the voices made me feel uncomfortable and filled with anxiety. Kassai would deliver this scratchy whisper, like how a ghost might try to communicate to you, while Krause would have this immensely sinister and ominous tone, like he was the living boogie man out to get you. If one of the motives was to make the audience feel disturbed, I think they successfully accomplished that, from start to finish. With the characters being made entirely from material and it being shown as a stop-motion animation, I imagine it was a challenge to still try and design expressions for the characters to have in order to further relay their emotions and actions, but even with that creative hurdle, they were still able to depict responses from the characters, like fear & joy. Some parts the characters had no expressions, which made their presence that much more harrowing.

What Does it Mean?

Most true-story films usually illustrate the events in a linear way, or at least in a way that clearly showcases what happened. What makes La Casa Lobo even more unique is how this was a fictional story told by and created by real life people who actually did heinous crimes and organized an entire ideology about the way they lived, but shown in a very perplexed and convoluted way. So it’s a narrative rooted in history, but told in an abstract fantasy based depiction. That being said, the “meaning” of this film can have many parts, since as I stated its rooted in a tragic occurrence that hundreds of people had to unfortunately experience. We can take it as an educational piece, and consider the lies and fables that were told to the colony in order to keep their loyalty fear-based, while also realizing the violent consequences to any who attempted to break out of that environment. On the other hand, if we take the film just at the story it presented, we can consider how it’s dangerous to leave our “home” in search for a better place or for freedom, and how even the ones we thought we can trust will end up betraying us. Or we can just try to enjoy the visual stimulation of this film as simply an artistic ordeal that has numerous symbolic and conceptual imagery.

La Casa Lobo was such a rarity to find in the film world, and even though I am glad I was able to view it all, I’m not sure if it’s something I would watch again myself. I do highly recommend it to be watched at least once, if you’re ready to go down this sort of rabbit hole. Brace yourself though, it’s a high climb from the moment it starts.